Step Right Over the Line
by nicalyse
Summary: Rachel just thinks that's only fair, and if Finn could learn to be okay with her sleeping with Puck, she can certainly learn to be okay with Finn sleeping with Santana. Eventual Puck/Rachel, Finn/Santana, with strong Finn/Rachel, Puck/Santana.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** There are a lot of pairings going on in this story, but I assure you that it will be Puck/Rachel in the end. That said, I'm hoping you'll trust me enough to take a chance on a four-chapter story that may explore a relationship between characters you don't necessarily enjoy together, including Finn/Rachel, Puck/Santana, and Finn/Santana, and keep your comments respectful as you've been warned. We're all mature enough not to stoop to character bashing, yes?

* * *

><p>The four of them end up in Boston, and it pisses Santana off.<p>

She worked her ass off, quietly, to get into Harvard. It's her dad's alma mater, and it means a lot to him, which means a lot to her, and she thinks she can be a kick ass lawyer someday. Fuck, if Harvard was good enough for the president, it's good enough for her. (Whatever. She knows it wasn't his undergrad. Not the point.)

Then she finds out that Rachel is going to Berklee, some conservatory or whatever in the city, and sometime in the last year, Puck actually got some songwriting skills and managed to get his dumb ass a scholarship to the same place. Finn's a jealous, insecure asshole, so he gives up OSU (which everyone knows he's always wanted) when he gets scouted by BU for football to follow Rachel.

Santana tells all three of them, in no uncertain terms, that they are to leave her the fuck alone before they even leave Lima. She isn't moving to the East coast to hang out with these people who make her crazy, even if she doesn't completely hate them any more. Sure, she's been sleeping with Puck for years, she and Rachel have developed a sort of tentative friendship, and Finn doesn't make her want to roll her eyes every time he speaks, but that doesn't mean she wants to see them every day. Or ever.

Rachel fucking Berry doesn't know how to follow simple instructions, apparently, because the girl starts sending Santana emails and text messages as soon as they're all in Boston, inviting her over for dinners and movie nights and once, honest to god, a "girls' spa night." Santana ignores the hell out of her until the beginning of October. Her roommate is making her crazy, and Rachel sends her a message about dinner and wine and _'Noah and Finn will be here too.'_

Honestly? Santana might have gone anywhere that promised booze, but it turns out to be a lot of fun. She and Rachel reached sort of an agreement back in high school, have had moments where they were almost friends or something, and there's something about being out of Lima that's working for the midget. Finn's kind of clued in over the last couple of years, and he and Rachel are done being disgustingly in love. Once Finn stops being scared of someone - like he was scared of Santana for years - there's something almost sexy about him. Like, she can actually see what Rachel sees in him beyond the fact that he treats her like gold.

She had forgotten how much she really _likes_ Puck, the fucker. He was her first, years and years ago, and for all of her bravado, she wouldn't have given that up to someone she didn't like at least a little. It sometimes seems like they've been friends forever, and no one has ever fucked her like he does.

She ends up alone in the tiny kitchen with Rachel, watching the girl open a bottle a wine so she can top off her glass.

"I'm glad you finally decided to come," Rachel says as the cork comes out of the bottle with a satisfying _pop_. "Spend time with us, I mean."

Santana just holds out her glass for Rachel to fill. "My roommate was pissing me off," she says, and it's the truth, even if she is having fun.

Rachel just nods, leaning back against the counter and sipping wine slowly. "Well, next time she upsets you, you're welcome to come here. And we have dinner every couple of weeks. I'd love it if you'd come."

"Maybe," Santana offers with a shrug, turning and going back into the living room where Finn and Puck are sitting, talking about whatever.

* * *

><p>Sometimes, Finn feels like he's been in love with Rachel forever.<p>

Seriously. He came to Boston for this girl, busts his ass playing football and keeping his grades up so he can stay here with her while she's at Berklee, and it doesn't even make him feel like a pussy. And honestly, that's all her. Other girls might hold that kind of thing over his head, make it into a big deal, but she's really just happy that he's there.

They've been together, really together without anyone else interfering, for less than a year, but he's loved her since he was sixteen and he feels closer to her than he ever has to anyone else.

He's sort of blindsided when she mentions, one night after dinner at her apartment, that sometimes she wishes he'd treat her a little less gently during sex.

"So, what?" he asks, confused. "You want me to like, pull your hair or something?" He knows their sex life isn't bad. In fact, he's pretty sure it's better than what a lot of people have. He always, always makes sure she comes - she faked it once, back when they first started sleeping together, and for all of her acting training, he could tell - and they spend the night together at her apartment a couple of times a week. He's really, really confused.

"No, I just-" She sighs, cutting herself off. "I love you," she tells him seriously, smiling when he takes her hand. "I just don't always want you to _make love_ to me."

"I don't get it."

She lets out a little breath, and he can tell she's trying to find just the right words to say whatever it is she's trying to say. "Sometimes, sex isn't about love. It's just sex," she says quietly, swallowing hard. "Fucking."

Finn looks at her with wide eyes. "Rachel." This girl never swears, not ever.

"Sometimes, I just want you to fuck me." She's whispering, looking down at where their hands are joined on the couch between them.

He's trying to focus on the fact that she's telling him what she wants instead of the fact that she's telling him that she doesn't like what he usually does. He's never just fucked a girl. Santana kind of fucked him, yeah, but that was different, and he's only been with Rachel. Puck is the guy who fucks girls, and Finn isn't sure that even Puck could just fuck Rachel.

She's just not that kind of girl.

But she's sitting here beside him, looking terrified that he's going to be mad or whatever that she's telling him that she wants this, whatever this means exactly, and he hates the look on her face. He wants to give her whatever she wants.

"Okay," he says after a moment. She looks up at him with wide eyes, but there's something new there, something sexy. "I mean, I'll try."

She leans forward, presses her lips to his slowly. "That's all I want."

* * *

><p>Puck fucking loves Boston.<p>

Seriously. This is the first time in his life when he's loved basically everything about school, because playing guitar and singing and writing songs are kind of his favorite things. Except sex, but that's a given, right?

Santana's at Harvard, and when she isn't studying her ass off, they hang out and fuck around, just like they always have. Finn and Rachel spend most of their time wrapped up in each other, though he sees Rachel more on campus and stuff. Really, of all the people from Lima to end up in the same city, he thinks he kind of lucked out with those three.

He's sitting in the lobby of one of the buildings on campus, scribbling in a notebook in between bouts of being distracted by the snow falling outside the window, when Rachel flops down into the chair beside him, shaking snowflakes off her red wool coat. He ignores her little huffs of breath as she moves around; he needs to finish writing this or he'll lose it, and he's just not okay with that, even if it is pissing her off.

"What's your problem?" he asks when he finishes, putting the cap on his pen and looking over at her for the first time.

"Nothing."

He rolls his eyes. Like she didn't want him to ask. "You're all huffy, Rachel. What the hell?"

"I'm just a little tense," she says after a moment, not quite meeting his eyes.

He smirks. "Just get Finn to rail you. You'll be fine."

She lets out a little breath and changes the subject, talking about the snow like she's never see the shit before, like they haven't already had a couple feet of the stuff this winter, and he thinks there's probably some subtext here that's he doesn't really want to pick up on.

* * *

><p>Rachel insists on celebrating Santana's birthday in April, convinces Puck and Finn that they should all go out to dinner, and spends an afternoon making margarita cupcakes with tequila that Puck bought for her with his fake ID.<p>

The girls get ready together at Rachel's apartment, put on dresses that are fancier than they should probably be wearing to the restaurant Santana chose, and Santana does Rachel's eye makeup darker and sexier than she usually wears.

"We're friends now, aren't we?" Rachel asks randomly.

Santana leans back a little, swirls a brush in a little pot of eyeshadow. "Yeah, I guess."

Rachel takes a deep, bracing breath. "I know our friendship is new, but I think I need some advice. Sex advice."

"Okay," Santana says with a smirk, tapping the excess powder off the brush and motioning for Rachel to close her eye.

"I love Finn," Rachel begins, speaking as seriously as she can with her eyes closed and this ticklish feeling on her eyelids, "and I love the way that he makes love to me."

"Get to the point, Berry."

"Awhile back, I asked him to...to fuck me." She pulls back from Santana to open her eyes and look at the girl seriously. "It's just that it's always making love, and I know there's a whole world of other things out there."

Santana's looking at her with her head cocked to the side, an appraising look in her eyes that almost makes Rachel nervous. "He can't do it," she says after a moment, and it's a statement rather than a question.

"He's trying," Rachel says quickly, and she feels defensive. "I can tell. And we've talked about it a couple of times. It's just...he's wonderful. And it's always good."

"He gets you off?"

"Always," Rachel says simply, because it's true. Finn comes from the school of thought that believes that the girl always comes first, and more than once, if possible. Admittedly, she loves that about him.

"If he isn't giving you what you want, maybe you need to find someone else who can," Santana suggests gently, and Rachel can tell she's actually trying to be helpful. It's such a radical difference from the Santana she knew in high school that it takes her a moment to process.

"No," Rachel says softly. "I can't do that. I don't want to."

That's the end of the conversation, because Santana tells Rachel to close her eyes again. She finishes Rachel's makeup, which really is lovely, sexier than what she usually does. Finn comments on how hot she looks, manages to whisper some dirty things in her ear when they're walking back to her car after dinner, things that make her blush, things that throb between her legs, and she finds herself hoping that he can follow through on the promises he's making.

They end up back at her apartment, all four of them, eating margarita cupcakes and taking shots of tequila after Santana insists that it's her birthday and she wants to be drunk, though Puck stays sober so he can take her home later.

Rachel and Finn find themselves alone in the kitchen, and he lifts her up onto the counter and wedges himself between her knees, running his hands up her thighs beneath her dress. "You look so fucking hot," he murmurs against her ear, nipping a little at the lobe with his teeth.

"Finn," she breathes, clutching at his shoulders. The room is spinning just a little, just enough to feel good.

"I want to take you from behind," he tells her lowly, and just the thought of it makes her whimper.

She buries her hands in his hair, pulls his head back just enough that she can kiss him hard and dirty, the way she wishes he would kiss her sometimes.

She doesn't realize that Puck has come into the room until he speaks. "Right on, Hudson. Fuck her on the kitchen counter."

She gasps, lets her fingernails dig into Finn's shoulders. God, there must be something wrong with her if she thinks that sounds amazing and sexy instead of just unsanitary.

"Fuck off, man," Finn offers, lowering his head to kiss the side of Rachel's neck gently. She's sure he means for it to be reassuring, but she liked the way he was treating her before.

Puck just shrugs, takes another cupcake from the counter and eats half of it in one bite. "Chicks like Rachel are always the one who are secret freaks," he offers with a wink to her, turning and leaving the kitchen before either Finn or Rachel can respond.

Finn does take her from behind that night, and Rachel isn't sure exactly what's missing, but it isn't what she wants it to be. Something about the way Finn grips her hips gently, smooths his hands up her back as he thrusts inside her. She knows this is a first world problem, having a boyfriend who makes love to you when you want to be fucked, but she's beginning to think that it's just going to have to be something she learns to live with.

* * *

><p>It's kind of a given that Puck and Finn are going to live together when Finn moves out of the dorms at the end of freshman year, but Rachel and Santana freak the hell out of both of them when the girls start looking for their own two-bedroom. The guys are still looking when Rachel insists that she's found the perfect place, and before anyone but her realizes it, they're living in the same building, the girls on the eighth floor, the guys on the eleventh.<p>

The first night in their new place, Rachel insists on having a girls' night, so Puck gets a bottle of Jack and the guy proceed to get shitfaced sitting on the couch in their new living room.

"Rachel wants me to fuck her," Finn says out of nowhere, and Puck seriously almost chokes on a drink of whiskey.

"Haven't you been doing that for like, a year?"

"No, dude. Rachel wants me to _fuck_ her," Finn repeats.

Puck decides, immediately, that he isn't drunk enough to have this conversation, so he leaves Finn sitting alone to go to the kitchen and pour himself another glass of whiskey. It sounds suspiciously like Finn is about to ask him for advice on exactly _how_ he's supposed to fuck the girl he's been with for the last year or whatever, and even though Puck wouldn't fuck shit up like that again, Rachel's kind of one of those girls he's always had a thing for. He can compartmentalize, and he's not going after his best friend's girl again, so he can just hang out with her or whatever, but yeah. He'd like to have a chance to go at her.

He knocks back half the glass before he leaves the kitchen, tops it off again, and goes back to sit in the armchair he was in before.

"I love her, man," Finn says after just a moment. "I just don't get what she wants me to do."

Puck takes a deep breath and blows it out of his mouth. "You love her enough to do whatever she wants, right?" Finn nods. "Then maybe you need to try to forget that it's _Rachel_ and just do whatever you want. I mean, you've gotta be holding something back sometimes, right?"

"I guess."

"So don't hold back. And unless she tells you flat out to stop, don't stop."

"What if I can't do what she wants?"

This is the weirdest fucking conversation ever.

Puck shrugs. He figures that's up to Rachel. "Don't find out."

* * *

><p>Santana comes home from having dinner with one of her friends from school and finds Puck and Rachel together on the couch in the girls' living room, Rachel's head pillowed in Puck's lap as they watch some movie.<p>

"Hi," Rachel says softly. She looks guilty as hell, which is weird since Santana wouldn't normally think anything of these two hanging out together. They go to the same school, share some classes, and they're all friends.

Santana just offers a little wave and goes to her bedroom, and tries not to think too much about anything that's going on between any of them right now.

* * *

><p>She gives up on getting what she wants from Finn around the time school starts again, tries to focus on the fact that she has a boyfriend who loves her and wants to show her that. It's been months, and she's tired of being disappointed, and she thinks he's probably tired of trying to do something he can't seem to do.<p>

One night, he comes over after practice. Santana's still on campus, meeting with her new study group, so Rachel is just sitting on the couch, flicking through her iTunes to try to find the perfect song to sing for class next week. He lets himself in (they all exchanged keys when they first moved into the building) and comes straight to where she's sitting, leans down and kisses her deep and slow.

"I've been thinking about you all day," he says, and she can't help the way she smiles.

"You have?"

He takes her laptop and sets it on the coffee table. "Mmhmm. I was thinking about how you taste."

She shivers as he pulls her to her feet and starts leading her down the hall, because this could potentially be the beginning of what she's been wanting. Talking about her taste...god, it's so vulgar and so _hot_ that it shoots down her spine. He pushes the bedroom door shut, then pushes the shorts she's wearing down off her hips. "Finn."

"Shh." He tugs her shirt over her head, leans down to kiss the side of her neck as he unhooks her bra. "I just need to taste you."

She comes on his tongue twice, and feels like the worst woman in the world for wanting more when she obviously already has so much.

* * *

><p>Puck can see it when Rachel starts pulling away from Finn.<p>

He's at the girls' place one night, first working on stuff for class with Rachel, then teasing the fuck out of Santana while the three of them sit on the couch under a blanket to watch _Scrubs_ reruns. His fingers jump on the inside of Santana's bare thigh when Rachel's phone rings, and he ignores the look Santana shoots him when Rachel gets up to take the call in her room.

He isn't trying to eavesdrop. He really has to piss. He just happens to hear Rachel talking about how she and Puck are still working on their song, "so maybe it would be better if you didn't come over tonight."

As soon as he sits back down on the couch, Santana's sliding her hand over the front of his jeans, and he sort of forgets what he heard.

He comes home after class one day and finds Finn moping on the couch, his leg propped up on the coffee table and a cold pack wrapped around his knee like it always is after football practice.

"What's your problem?" Puck asks, dropping his bag and setting his guitar on the floor carefully.

"I haven't even seen Rachel in like, a week. We live in the same fucking building and you've seen her more than I have."

True. Puck saw her this morning, because they always take the bus to campus together, then stop for coffee before class if they have time. She cracked his shit up this morning, actually, telling a story about Santana and a clothes iron that he'd think was made up if Rachel wasn't the one who told him.

"Sucks, dude," he says simply, because it does.

"It's this sex thing."

Fuck. Puck has tried - literally tried - to forget that he ever had that conversation with Finn. He does not want to have it again.

So he says nothing.

"I think..." Finn trails off with a sigh and looks up at Puck. "I think I need to let her have someone else." Puck just looks at him with wide eyes, because he has no fucking clue what he's supposed to say. "I mean, you'd fuck her, right?"

"Dude."

"No, I mean, if Rachel was into it and I said it was okay." Finn takes a deep breath. "You'd fuck her, wouldn't you?"

"Dude," Puck repeats, even though it makes him feel stupid. "I'm not going there again. You know that."

"I know. But if it's what she wanted...I want to give her what she wants."

This is completely fucking fucked.

"I don't..." He trails off, because he doesn't think there's a way to have this conversation without somehow getting punched in the face. And if he's going to get hit either way, he might as well be honest. "Yeah, I would."

Finn just nods, looking resigned, and Puck's so uncomfortable that he goes and hides in his room like a pussy for the rest of the night.

* * *

><p>"Finn wants me to fuck Rachel."<p>

Santana literally chokes on her caramel macchiato and glares across the little cafe table at Puck. "What?"

He rolls his eyes, though she can tell it isn't at her. "Apparently Finn's too nice to her in bed and she wants to get railed, and he wants me to do it."

"I know," Santana says, and Puck looks shocked as hell. "Well, I live with the girl. She's basically my best friend. Chicks talk." It's true. Rachel hasn't talked about it a lot, her sex life in general, but after she and Finn had this conversation about including Puck in their relationship - or whatever the fuck - Rachel said she just needed to talk through it with someone, and Santana was there.

"Fuck." He just stares at her for a minute. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Do you want to fuck Rachel?" Honestly, she thinks he's making this harder than it has to be.

"Yeah. I do." He says it so simply that she knows it's true, and she ignores the little flare of jealousy in her stomach.

"If Finn's okay with it and Rachel wants it, do it," she tells him firmly. "Give her what she wants."

She means that, even if she doesn't know how it's all going to shake down. She isn't sure that Finn will be able to move past his jealousy of Puck, because it's kind of been a constant thing, and she isn't sure that Puck won't manage to get emotionally involved. The kid isn't nearly as detached as he makes everyone believe. But maybe, if they're all lucky, it'll just be a one-time thing, and Rachel will get it out of her system and go back to being the Stepford girlfriend to Finn she's always wanted so much to be.

* * *

><p>Rachel can't remember the last time she was this nervous about sex.<p>

That isn't exactly true. The last time she was this nervous about sex was about two minutes before she and Finn were together for the first time. Her first time.

She isn't entirely sure how she got here. Finn spent months trying to give her what she wanted, and she'd given up on it, truly. And then last Sunday, they were sitting together on the couch in the guys' apartment, watching the football game while Finn iced his knee and shoulder from his own game the afternoon before. He brought it up, told her that he wasn't sure he could give her what she wanted, but that he wouldn't be mad if she got it from somewhere else.

He told her that he'd talked to Puck about it, and Puck had agreed to be that guy, if Rachel wanted him.

She hadn't said anything, just sat there with his calves across her lap, looking at him as he told her that he just wanted her to be happy, and his game was out of state this weekend, so it would be a good time for it, if she wanted to do it. She still didn't say anything, and Finn didn't seem to expect her to. In fact, they'd just sat there, watching the game quietly, until Noah came home and started chatting like there wasn't this enormous thing hanging in the air between the three of them.

Later that week, she and Finn were sitting together in her room studying when she'd put down her notebook, looked at him, and said quietly, "I'm going to do it."

Finn had just watched her for a moment, then nodded and went back to his textbook.

She could tell, from the way Puck acted when they met to head to campus Thursday morning, that Finn had told him, but she'd acted as normally as possible right up until they got to campus and reached the point where they went their separate ways. "Noah," she'd said quietly. "Friday."

She'd watched his Adam's apple move as he swallowed, then nodded. "All right. Bye, Rach."

And now she's standing in her bedroom trying to talk herself down.

She's showered and fixed her hair so that the ends are curled, is wearing matching black lace bra and panties under her jeans and sweater. Her makeup is light, just like her perfume, and she's panicking.

She wants this. She does. She knows that Noah can give her what she wants, and honestly, there's a part of her that has always wondered what sex with Noah would be like. But...god, she's worried about what it could do to her relationship with Finn. Of course, he's the one who told her to do this.

She repeats that to herself: _He's the one who told me to do this._

Then she grabs her keys and her phone and slips out of the apartment, walking slowly up the three flights of stairs to the guys' apartment. She knocks, then lets herself in, like always, and finds Noah sitting on the couch, his feet propped up on the coffee table as he plucks at his guitar. "Hey," he greets, standing up and walking over to where she's standing just inside the door. He watches her for a moment, reaches out to brush the tips of his fingers over her cheekbone. "You're completely freaked out."

"No. Maybe," she corrects when he quirks an eyebrow at her.

"All you have to do is say no," he tells her seriously, and she nods because she knows he means it. "C'mon."

He leads her down the hallway to his room, pushes her up against the door once it's closed. "Hi," she giggles. She's so nervous.

"Hi." He tilts his head down to brush his lips against hers, just gently, teasing until her hand comes up to fist his tee shirt at his side. "Rach."

"Shut up," she tells him, pushing her hips into his. "Just...kiss me."

He buries one hand in the back of her hair, tightening his grip just enough to tug her head back as he crashes his lips down on hers, pushing his tongue past her lips and stroking it against hers almost immediately. It's deep and a little rough, and she can feel herself getting wet as he wedges his thigh between her legs.

She gasps his name when he trails his lips up her jaw to bite down gently on the skin just beneath her ear, and she doesn't even realize that she's pulling at his shirt until he pulls away to tug the fabric over his head. She puts her hands on his shoulders to keep him from kissing her again, though his hands are pushing up the sides of her sweater. "Tell me what you want to do to me." She knows she's blushing and hopes that he'll think it's just because she's overheated.

He smirks down at her, tugs the sweater over her head and traces his fingers along the edge of her bra, his fingertips just dipping beneath the lace. "Tell me how you want it," he counters, and she lets out a moan.

"Just fuck me," she breathes when he skims his lips over the swell of her breasts, his fingers working the button of her jeans. "Fuck me like you want to."

"Jesus fucking Christ." He spins her around, pushes her back on his bed, and tugs her jeans down off her legs before she can even register the move. "'S'gonna be so good, Rachel." He lies on top of her, between her legs, and grinds his hips into hers as he attaches his lips to her neck. "So good."

It is good, exactly what she wanted, and she tells him that after, when she's still catching her breath and there's sweat drying on her skin. She pushes down the niggling sense of guilt in the back of her mind (_He told me to do this_.) and laughs when Noah says, "I know."

He gets up and leaves the room for a minute, and Rachel starts panicking. What's the post-sex etiquette when you're sleeping with your boyfriend's best friend? When you had permission to it?

She already has her panties on and is hooking her bra when Noah reappears, still naked and carrying a glass of water, which he offers to her, his eyes skimming over her body as she takes a long sip. "You're freaking out again."

This time, she goes with honesty right off the bat. "Yes. I got what I wanted," she says, ignoring his smirk, "but I might have just destroyed my relationship. And I love Finn."

There's something absurd about standing here like this, she in her underwear and him naked, having this conversation.

"Look, Finn's half-stupid for you," Puck says bluntly, looking her straight in the eye. "He wouldn't have done all this if he didn't want to keep you and make you happy. It's not like a trap," he adds, his tone more gentle. "He just wants to give you what you want, even if you have to get it from someone else."

She thinks it says a lot for Noah's maturity that he can have this conversation without making a lewd comment. Even she can see that there are half a dozen or so opportunities in his last sentence alone. "I'm going to go home," she says after a moment, setting the water glass on his bedside table and stepping into her jeans. "Thank you."

He makes a noise, something between a laugh and a scoff. "Yeah." He flops back on the bed - still naked - and watches her pull her sweater over her head, look in the mirror on his closet door and check her hair. "Stop freaking out."

She just smiles as she steps out of his room.

* * *

><p>Finn manages to keep his focus on football right up until the end of the game, but as soon as he's in the locker room, he's thinking about Rachel and Puck and whether they actually went through with sleeping together and just how fucked up his life is going to be when he gets back to Boston.<p>

This might be the dumbest idea he's ever had. He's legitimately never felt more stupid, and he drives himself completely crazy on the bus ride back into the city, coming up with fucking ridiculous scenarios in his head that involve walking into his apartment and finding Rachel bent over the back of their couch while Puck takes her from behind. (Which is like, hot and horrible all at once.)

Instead, he finds Puck on the couch playing CoD in a pair of sweats, a bag of Doritos and a can of Dr. Pepper on the table in front of him. "D'you win?" he asks, the same thing he says every time Finn comes home from an away game, even though Finn knows that Puck checks the scores online.

"Yeah. Their offense was weak."

"Right on, man."

He leaves Puck to go drop his shit in his room, calls Rachel to make sure she's downstairs at her apartment before he puts his knee through three flights of stairs.

She's waiting for him on the couch when he gets there, a giant bottle of orange Gatorade (his favorite), two ice packs, and a roll of athletic tape on the coffee table in front of her. "Hi, sweetheart," she greets, standing and crossing the living room to press a sweet kiss to his lips.

God, he loves this girl.

They end up sitting on opposite ends of the couch, their legs tangled together as he tells her about the game. And as much as he loves just sitting with her, being with her, he's going crazy, and he knows that she isn't going to bring it up.

"So...you and Puck," he says awkwardly. It's not really a question, but he needs her to say something.

She glances down at her lap, then meets his eyes. "Yes."

"And you...it was good?" He hates himself for asking.

Rachel's cheeks are bright red. "Yes. It's just different," she adds quickly.

"Better?"

"No! God, Finn, _no_." She moves so she's straddling his thighs, and he puts his hands on her hips to keep her from falling sideways off the couch. "It's just different. I love you," she says insistently. He nods. "Tell me you love me."

"I love you, Rachel."

He makes love to her that night, the best way he knows how, and makes sure that she comes twice before he's even inside her. He falls asleep wrapped around her, and he loves the way it feels, the warmth of her body and way her hair tickles his chest.

Maybe they'll be okay.

* * *

><p>Santana's starting to think that going to Harvard was a fucking awful idea.<p>

She's working her ass off because there's no way that she going to fail the fuck out of Harvard, but she doesn't have time for a social life. Like, at all. She and Rachel really just see each other in passing lately, and she knows some crazy shit has gone down with her and Finn and Puck, but she hasn't had the time - or the patience, really - to hear about it.

Honestly, that's part of the reason she'd been hoping to have a chance to go out at some point, because she really doesn't want to get involved in this shit, and she really, really needs to get laid. Puck's always been her standby, because she trusts him and he's _good_, and it pisses her off that her friends might have gone and fucked that up.

She has so much sexual tension in her body right now that it's unreal.

She's sitting in her room on the Saturday before finals, studying for her political science final and getting distracted as fuck by trying to figure out when she last got off on something that wasn't her own hand. It pisses her off that she can't.

Rachel and Finn are in Rachel's room, studying and being disgustingly cute, and Santana doesn't bother telling them she's going out before she leaves the apartment, half-running up three flights of stairs and crashing into the guys' place.

Puck's sitting in an armchair with his guitar and an open notebook on the table in front of him, and even though she knows that he actually probably is working, it pisses her off that his work is a guitar and an ink pen and she's losing her mind over textbooks and pages of notes and a ton of ridiculous shit that, right now, she hates.

She doesn't say anything, just takes the guitar out of his hands and sets it (gently) on the couch, then puts her knees on either side of his thighs and pushes herself as close to him as she can, leaning in to kiss him hard.

She kind of loves that he doesn't ask questions, just buries his hands in her hair and tilts her head to get a better angle as he curls his tongue around hers, his hips pushing upwards a bit so they're pressed together completely and she can feel that he's already getting hard.

He ends up pushing her over the arm of the couch and taking her from behind, and she's so tightly wound that she literally comes the first time he presses into her. After that, honestly, it's all just icing on the cake.

"So what was that about?" Puck asks when they're sitting on his bed, trading drinks from a glass of water.

She shrugs. "It's been a while." She thinks she could probably tell him that she's been feeling neglected without him giving her shit for it, but she isn't quite willing to give up that sort of power.

Then he looks at her seriously, and she thinks he might know even without her saying it. "You know I'm here whenever you need it, right Lo'?"

She sort of loves that nickname, mostly because no one else has ever used it, hasn't ever tried to. She doesn't say anything, just nods and doesn't argue when he pulls the blankets up over their bodies, though she does ask him to set an alarm so she doesn't waste too much time before she gets back to studying.

Honestly, it might be the most productive study break she's ever taken, three orgasms and an hour-long nap, because when she goes back downstairs to her own apartment, studying significant Supreme Court cases is suddenly infinitely easier than it was before.

* * *

><p>Finn ends up flying back to Ohio for Christmas because Carole wants to see him and Finn's always been kind of a mama's boy. (Though, to be fair, Puck loves his mom, too, and if he had Carole, he thinks he'd be just as pathetic as Finn.) They all three take him to the airport the Monday after finals are over, and even Santana promises that she'll come along in two weeks to pick him up.<p>

Puck is the only one with any responsibilities over break, but even that's not so terrible because he's just working in the ticket office on campus, answering phones and taking credit information from assholes with too much money who want to see showcases and whatever that neither he nor Rachel are involved in this semester.

Santana goes out on a date with some Harvard guy and tells Puck and Rachel - who are sitting on the girls' couch offering commentary on Santana's clothing choices - to stay the fuck out of her way when she comes home because she wants to get laid. They go upstairs to the guys' apartment before Santana's date even gets there, end up getting drunk on Southern Comfort and watching _Meet the Fockers_ on TV.

Puck's sitting on the floor in front of the couch, leaning back against it as Rachel runs her fingernails over his scalp between sips of SoCo. He puts his hand up on the couch behind him, pushing up under the hem of Rachel's jeans to stroke his fingers over her bare ankle. Her skin is soft and she's driving him half crazy with the way she's touching his head, and he's just drunk enough to feel sort of tingly and awesome all over.

He drops his head back, rests it against her shin, and looks at her upside down. "Hey."

"Hi," she giggles, rolling her eyes a little. Neither of them says anything else, but she lets her fingers move lower, one hand skimming over the side of his neck and back up until she's brushing just her fingertips over the shell of his ear and then rubbing his earlobe gently between her thumb and forefinger.

"Rachel." It comes out lower than he means for it to.

"Noah." She isn't really smiling any more, and he notices that her eyes are a little glassy.

Fuck, he wants her.

He stands up, puts one knee on the couch beside her so he can lean over and speak into her ear with one hand braced on the back of the couch. "If you don't want this, you need to leave, Rachel."

She just blinks up at him, and he's about this close to jerking her up off the couch and kissing her stupid, so he turns his back and walks to his room, shuts the door behind him. He's drunk, yeah, but he still doesn't want to fuck up his friendship with Finn, and just because he got a free pass to fuck Rachel once doesn't mean that it's like, a standing offer. He doesn't know how it's supposed to work. Last time, it wasn't cheating because Finn knew about it ahead of time. Fuck, Finn set it up. If they do it again though...

He's lying flat on his back on his bed when his bedroom door pushes open. He watches her step through and close it behind her, even though they're the only ones in the apartment, then just stand there. "Noah."

It's practically a whisper, then she's walking up to the side of the bed, eyes locked with his as she pulls her sweater over her head and pushes her jeans down off her hips. He looks down just once, takes in her whole body because he has to, then looks her straight in the eye and reminds himself to breathe.

She climbs on top of him, straddles his hips and rests her hands on the pillow on either side of his head as she leans over. "I want you," she murmurs just before she kisses him, nipping at his bottom lip with her teeth as her hair falls in a curtain around them. She grinds her hips down into his when she pushes her tongue into his mouth, and fuck it.

He rolls them, presses her back into the mattress, and fucks her like he knows she wants.

"Do you mind if I stay for a while?" she asks afterwards. He looks over at her, notices the way she's clutching the sheet to her chest. "Santana will be upset if I'm there when she gets home," she says by way of explanation.

He just nods, hands her his tee shirt and gets up to go get a glass of water from the kitchen.

They hang out in the living room and play video games while she wears his tee shirt and her jeans, and she waits until well after midnight to go back to her own apartment.

* * *

><p>Finn can tell something's up as soon as he gets back to Boston, because Rachel's doing the thing she does where she tries to pretend that she isn't acting weird when she is.<p>

He doesn't give a fuck where Puck is when Rachel pushes his bedroom door closed and comes over to kiss him slowly. "I missed you," she tells him quietly.

He pulls her down to sit across his lap because he likes her that way, pushes her hair back off her face. "I missed you, too."

She pulls back a bit when he leans in to kiss her. "I need to tell you something." He just nods, because he's known that since he saw her at the airport. "I slept with Puck again."

Honestly, it's kind of what he expected her to say, but it still hits him like a bucket of ice water. Nothing had changed between them since the first time she and Puck had been together, and nothing had changed between him and Puck either, so Finn thought that maybe things could just go back to normal. Like, it was a one-time thing for Rachel, and now that she'd gotten it out of her system, they could just be together and in love and be enough for each other.

It stings that he was wrong. The fact that he isn't enough for her stings more than the fact that she slept with Puck at all.

"Okay," he says, because really, what else can he say?

"You aren't mad?"

"No." He isn't. He's hurt, yeah, but he isn't mad, and it hurt the first time, too. Maybe he should get used to it.

Rachel looks like she might throw up. "I started it. Puck walked away from me, but I followed him." She presses her lips together, and he can see the tears welling up in her eyes. "I didn't know that I wanted it until it was happening. I'm sorry."

Fuck. He loves her for blaming herself, because he knows that she worries about his friendship with Puck. He also knows that Rachel is a terrible liar, so he can tell she's telling the truth and that she feels awful about it. "It's okay."

"Really?"

He swallows hard, nods his head. "Yeah. I mean...if that's what you want..." He trails off with a shrug, because he doesn't really know how to tell her to fuck Puck whenever she feels the urge. He's sort of afraid that she'll like sex with Puck more than she like sex with him. But he doesn't want her to feel guilty for wanting it either. It's Finn's own fault; if he could give her what she wanted, she wouldn't need to get it from Puck. So that means it's his job to make sure that she does get what she wants, even if she's getting it from his best friend.

Fuck.

"If that's what you want, Rachel, you should go for it," he says finally. Her eyes are huge and swimming with tears. "I mean it."

It takes him by surprise when she leans in and kisses him, shifting in his lap so she's straddling his thighs as she pushes her hand into his hair. "I love you."

He pulls back enough to meet her eyes. "I love you, too."

She offers him a slow smile, runs one had down his chest. "Show me."


	2. Chapter 2

Santana hates being sick, and she really can't afford it right now. She's less busy this semester, but midterms are coming up, and she cannot miss days of studying to get over the fucking flu. Unfortunately, not having time to be sick doesn't keep you from getting sick, especially when some jackass who looks like he's dying of the plague sits next to you on the bus.

She manages to make it through her Friday morning class, but feels like she's going to collapse on the bus ride back into the city. When she finally does make it to her bedroom, it takes her thirty minutes to get out of her coat and the rest of her clothes and into sweats and a hoodie. She has the chills, but she's sweating, and she really, truly wants to die right now.

She sleeps until Rachel comes into her room late that afternoon offering juice and NyQuil, the first of which she downs and the second of which she doses herself with liberally. So liberally that she doesn't wake up until the next morning, a little before nine, feeling only marginally less disgusting and completely ravenous, even though her stomach is roiling.

She's lying pathetically on the couch under a quilt, nibbling saltine crackers and staring at the blank television screen, when Puck comes walking up the hall, pulling his tee shirt over his head.

"Uh, hey," he says stupidly. She just looks at him with her eyes narrowed. "Are you feeling any better?" Apparently Rachel told him she was sick.

"No. What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Do you need anything?" he asks, ignoring her question. It pisses her off.

"No. What the fuck are you doing here, Puck?" He sighs, and his eyes dart back down the hallway. "Are you fucking serious?" she hisses, though her voice comes out more weakly than she'd like.

"Don't, Santana," he tells her harshly. "You'll have to ask Rachel about it."

He doesn't say anything else, just crosses the room quickly and goes out the front door, locking it behind him.

Fuck this. Santana fucking hates not knowing what's going on in her own goddamn house with her two best friends, especially if they're fucking around behind Finn's back. She pushes herself up off the couch, waits a moment for the room to stop spinning because she's definitely still fucking sick, then makes her way down the hall to Rachel's room, shoving the door open without knocking because she's a bitch.

Rachel's sitting up in bed with her computer in her lap. "What the hell is going on with you and Puck?" Santana asks without preamble.

"Santana, you look awful," Rachel tells her on a gasp, which really just pisses Santana off even more. "Sit down."

She does, even though she's sort of pissed off that Rachel hasn't answered her question, because if she doesn't sit, she might pass out, and adding some sort of head injury to this would suck. "You and Puck?" she repeats.

"Finn knows," Rachel answers, and it's not exactly an answer to the question, but it does tell Santana what she wants to know. "It's just sex."

"Aren't you having sex with Finn?"

"It's...different," Rachel says, and Santana can tell she's trying to be delicate. She'd call the girl on it, but she actually thinks the distinction is a real thing in Rachel's mind.

She has to lie down, because the room is tilting. "And Finn's okay with it?"

"Yes," Rachel answers, setting her computer aside and moving closer to Santana. "Sweetie, you aren't okay. You need to go to the doctor."

"I'm fine," Santana argues. "I just need to sleep." She wants to be in her own bed, but there's no way she can walk down the hall right now, and she doesn't know if Rachel's strong enough to help her, so she doesn't mention it.

"Santana," Rachel says softly, and Santana glares at her the best she can. Bitch is not going to drag her to the hospital or something stupid just because she has the flu and just overexerted herself worrying about her friends' sex lives. Rachel seems to realize this and rolls her eyes. "Fine. Can I call Finn to carry you to your room?"

She nods, even though she kind of hates the idea of being helped, because she really does want to be in her own bed.

She's already half-asleep when Finn comes into the room, and she's sick enough that she doesn't feel like a complete child when Finn slips one arm under the back of her knees and the other around her back to lift her up. "You look like death," he tells her casually as he carries her down the hall, Rachel trailing behind them, and she just leans her head against his shoulder and groans pathetically when he chuckles.

He puts her carefully in her bed, pulls the blankets up around her when Rachel says she's going to get a glass of water for Santana to drink. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asks, smoothing her bangs back off her forehead. She knows he's trying to covertly check for a fever.

"I'm fine," she says as insistently as she can when she's lying through her teeth. She locks eyes with him. "Are you okay?"

He softens a little, and she thinks she sees something flicker in his eyes. "Yeah."

She starts watching him a little more carefully after that, which is pretty easy to do since he spends so much time at the girls' place when football isn't in season. He's acting pretty normally with Rachel, but she can see that there's something else there, and really, it must suck to feel like you aren't good enough for someone.

Santana knows what that feels like, actually. There aren't very many things that are more awful than that.

It's hard to be mad at anyone for it though. Puck certainly isn't to blame; honestly, he's just doing what he was asked to do, and it's weirdly noble and fucking bizarre all at once. It was Finn's idea, but Rachel went along with it, ran with it even, and so they're each just as bad at the other. But honestly, she doesn't know that Finn needs any more hits to his ego about not being good enough. The guy's been building that confidence since he and Rachel finally got back together (honestly, they're great for each other), and Santana can see that ebbing away. (She feels bad, sometimes, for the role she's played in tearing him down in the past, but she can't do anything about that now.)

Rachel's wearing her guilt like perfume, which makes sense, Santana figures. She's basically cheating on her boyfriend, the guy Santana knows Rachel really is ass over feet in love with, even if it is like, sanctioned cheating or whatever. But Santana can also tell that, for all of the guilt, Rachel does seem more relaxed, more satisfied, happier, even, when the girl manages to forget about what's going on under the surface of all this.

Puck's the least caught up in all of it, though he flat-out told her that sometimes it makes him feel like a piece of shit. He's being used and screwing around on his best friend and it's just a really fucked up situation.

She started out worrying about how all of this sharing bullshit was going to affect her, but now she's genuinely worried about how it's going to effect each of the people involved.

* * *

><p>It literally takes months, but Finn kind of makes peace with the whole Rachel-and-Puck-fucking thing. Logically, he knows that their friendship must be different on some level, but neither of them ever acts any differently when Finn is around. They don't flirt, and Puck doesn't make any more or less innuendos than he did before - and Rachel blushes just like she always has when he does.<p>

After the Christmas break thing, he and Rachel sort of made some ground rules for the whole thing. Like, Puck and Rachel never, ever do anything if Finn is in the apartment, and she always lets him know either right before or right after it happens. There are a couple of unspoken things too, like she never leaves Finn to be with Puck, and neither of them ever shares any of the details about what goes on between them with Finn.

He knows it's fucking weird, but he also knows that it's keeping Rachel happy, which means it's keeping her with him, so it's okay.

He tries really hard not to feel pathetic about it.

Summer football practices start two weeks after the semester ends, so it's right back to weights and conditioning and running drills and icing various parts of his body. He gets back to the locker room after a late afternoon practice and finds a text from Rachel telling him that she's _going to spend some time with Noah tonight_, which is Rachel-speak for 'I'm sexing him, not you.' He doesn't even feel guilty using the fake ID Puck got him years ago to get a twelve of Killian's, partially because he _needs_ a beer and partially because he's just a few weeks shy of being legal, and really, there are worse things going on in the world than some self-indulgent underaged drinking.

He's sitting on the couch, his foot propped up on the coffee table with an ice pack balanced on his ankle, two beers and half of a _Criminal Minds_ rerun into a night he's going to pretend doesn't completely suck if anyone asks. There's a knock at the front door, and it pushes open before he can even turn all the way around to look at it.

"Are there more of those?" Santana asks, pointing to the beer in his hand.

"Fridge."

She comes out of the kitchen with a bottle up to her lips, slips out of her flip flops, and sits beside him on the couch. "You know this show is fucked, right?" He shoots her a little grin and nods.

She's quiet until the next commercial, then she takes a long sip of her beer and sighs. "Are you really okay with all of this, Finn?"

She doesn't have to explain what she's talking about. Their roommates - his girlfriend and her fuck buddy - are downstairs having sex. That's why they're both sitting here; he knows she came up here to get away from it, just like he knows that the whole thing sort of freaks her out.

It's weird that Santana is the one of the four of them who's freaked by it.

He just shrugs his shoulders, because yeah, he's as okay with it as he can be, he guesses. He isn't like, sitting here worrying about it, and it usually doesn't even hit him like this, make him want to get drunk and mope on the couch. Usually it just...is. He's used to it or whatever.

"Don't you ever want to level the playing field?"

His eyebrows come together when he looks at her. "What do you mean?"

She just shakes her head with a mean little grin on her lips. "Never mind."

It turns into a thing, Santana coming upstairs on the handful of occasions that Puck and Rachel are together when Finn and Santana are both home. Honestly? It kind of makes him feel better about the whole thing.

* * *

><p>Rachel goes back to Lima for two weeks in July because it's been a year since she's been home, though her fathers came to the city for a week over the holidays to celebrate her birthday and spoil her the way they did when she was growing up. Rachel spends an awful lot of time with Finn, Santana, and Noah, and she knows she's going to miss them when she isn't seeing them every day, so the night before she leaves, she insists of having a 'family dinner.' She and Finn spend the rest of the evening in her bed, making up for the fact that it'll be two weeks before they're together again.<p>

Rachel hears Santana leave the apartment not long after Finn closes the bedroom door behind him, and Rachel knows that she's going upstairs to be with Puck. She feels a tiny surge of guilt; Santana is in the habit of leaving the apartment about every third time that Rachel has sex, be it with Puck or Finn, and Rachel knows that her roommate nearly always spends that time at the guys' place. Santana has never brought it up, not once. Rachel isn't quite sure what to make of that.

Lima feels strange without her friends. Brittany is the only glee club member still there, and since Rachel's heard the story of everything that happened between Brittany and Santana, it's hard for her to look at Brittany the same way. Santana has become her best friend, and Rachel feels protective of her, even if it is all so far in the past. It's only two weeks, but she misses Santana's sass, Noah's bluntness (and his hands), and basically everything about Finn, even though she talks to each of them on the phone more than once.

Still, it's two weeks away from voice lessons and dance lessons and expectations, two weeks of sleeping in and her fathers spoiling her because they won't get another chance for quite awhile. It's nice.

Her phone wakes her up one night, buzzing loudly on her bedside table. She'd forgotten just how the tables in her childhood room seemed to transmit the vibration, unlike those in her room in Boston.

"Hey, baby," Noah says when she answers. "What're you wearing?"

"Noah?" She squints at her alarm clock, sees that it's well past two a.m.

"Yeah. Rach, I know this is kinda fucked up," he slurs, "but this is the kinda night when you would've ended up in my bed, and I was thinkin' about you, so I thought I'd call. What're you wearing?" he repeats.

"My blue nightgown," she answers without thinking. She isn't sure that he knows what any of her nightgowns look like, actually, so it doesn't really matter. "Are you drunk?"

"Wasted. Are we fuckin' Finn over?"

Her breath catches on the lump in her throat, and now she's awake. She's thought a lot about this, and it doesn't seem to matter which way she looks at it, she can't seem to convince herself that it's either completely wrong or completely right, and either way, she isn't sure that she's willing to give up having both of them as long as they're both willing to go along with it.

No one has ever said that Rachel Berry isn't selfish.

"I don't know," she finally answers. "You should drink a glass of water and go to sleep."

He scoffs a little. "'S'kind of fucked up how you mother us all, y'know that? I like it, but 's'fucked."

"There are a lot of things that are fucked up about us, Noah," she answers softly. "Drink a glass of water. Take two Advil. I'm going back to sleep."

"'Kay. Night, Rach."

She doesn't go back to sleep. Her mind is too busy for sleep.

* * *

><p>A couple of weeks before the beginning of the semester, Santana wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of Rachel keening, '<em>Noah<em>' from down the hallway. It isn't that late, but she's been doing an internship at a local law firm, and she's fucking exhausted and she doesn't want to hear anyone have sex, let alone her roommate and her fuck buddy who the girls happen to share.

God, they're fucked up.

She grabs her phone off her bedside table and rolls out of bed, slides her feet into a pair of flip flops and leaves the apartment, heading to the stairwell even though she's just wearing a gray satin slip.

She lets herself into the guys' apartment, bypasses the couch (fuck off with that) and Puck's room, because she doesn't want to be woken up when he comes home, and pushes her way into Finn's bedroom. "Finn," she says softly, stepping close to the bed. He's curled up on the far side of the bed, facing the empty side with his mouth open just a tiny bit as he sleeps. She would think it was weird that he was in bed this early if she hadn't just heard all about how football was kicking his ass lately from Rachel. Right before his roommate came downstairs to fuck his girlfriend. "Finn."

His eyes open slowly and he takes a deep breath. "Santana?"

"Can I sleep in here?" she asks. "I got woken up."

She doesn't elaborate, but she can tell that he knows what she's getting at. "Yeah." He lifts up the blankets, and she slips between them, letting out a little noise at how nice and warm it is in here compared to the too-cool air of the apartment. His sheets are soft and smell like fabric softener and his cologne and just a hint of Rachel's shampoo, and it's just really, really comfortable here. It's easy to fall asleep.

She wakes up later when she hears Puck come into the apartment, because it's such a different sound from when someone comes into her own place.

She's a little surprised to find that Finn has wrapped himself around her in his sleep, his chest against her back and one of his mammoth hands resting on her stomach, just beneath her breasts. She tries to slip away, but his grip on her body tightens and he grinds his hips into her ass a little bit.

It freaks her out that she likes the way that feels.

"Finn," she murmurs, pushing her elbow back gently into his ribs. He mumbles something completely incoherent. "Finn," she tries again, louder.

"Mphh." His grip tightens more when he first wakes up, then she feels his whole body tense when he realizes that he isn't sharing his bed with his girlfriend. "Shit."

"Yeah," Santana agrees when he lets go of her completely and rolls over onto his back. "I'm gonna go."

She was so warm in his bed that she hates the way the air rushes over her body when she slips out from beneath the comforter. She just pushes her feet back into her flip flops, picks up her phone from where she dropped it next to them, and makes her way back downstairs to her own silent home.

She feels guilty about all of it for a minute, until she realizes that this is probably the most innocently she's touched any man in a while, and not anything compared to what Rachel and Puck are doing, not to mention the fact that neither she nor Finn has anything but platonic feelings for the other. It's still hard to fall asleep, despite her logic, because her bed is too cold and smells like just her.

* * *

><p>He's been doing shit like this forever, but Puck's starting to feel used.<p>

It sucks, but he isn't sure if he's pissed off about being used or pissed off at the idea of being pissed off.

It's pretty fucked up.

He's been doing this thing with Rachel for like a year, and he's been fucking around with Santana off and on since he was about fourteen. He's never really taken the time to fall in love with someone or whatever, and for all of Finn's whining (not really, but whatever) about only being able to make love to Rachel, Puck isn't sure that he's ever been with anyone like that. And yeah, he knows what he's doing in bed and that he's good at it, but sometimes even he'd like to try something new. There are always new positions and new kinks or whatever, but it's not the same thing.

So he feels used and pissed off at himself and everyone else, and he's starting to feel like a pussy on top of it.

Rachel comes into the guys' apartment the same night that Finn leaves for his first away game of the new season. Puck gets it; she feels less guilty or whatever about being with him when Finn isn't in the same city, and better still if he's out of state. Really, he's been expecting this ever since Finn hung his game and travel schedule up on the fridge, like he always does, back at the beginning of summer.

He's sitting on the couch playing Madden when she comes in, and he's sort of immediately annoyed with her. She looks hot, even though she's just wearing jeans and a zippered hoodie over a tank top, because her hair is loose and sleek and long like it was back when he first joined glee club, and her cheeks are all pink like they get when she half-runs up the three flights of stairs to his place.

"I think sports video games are the ones I understand least," she comments, sinking onto the couch beside him and curling her legs up next to herself.

He basically ignores her, because not only doesn't that make a lot of sense, he doesn't really care, and he's seriously trying to nail video game Roethlisberger right in his big, douchey face.

"Noah," she says quietly after a while. "Are you mad at me?"

"No," he answers easily. He rolls his eyes when she tilts her head at him. "Kinda, but not really."

She smiles at him sadly, like maybe she understands. "Do you want me to go?"

"No." He doesn't. For one thing, he's never turned down sex with a hot girl (except that one time when he had a sinus infection and felt like he was dying), and he isn't about to start now. That, and because he does want Rachel. Fuck, he _wants_ her. She's one of his best friends, yeah, and he like spending time with her, but the sex thing is strictly physical. He isn't in love with her. He doesn't want to be with her. But, yeah, he likes being inside her.

It's just...sometimes he wonders if he's missing out on something because he isn't in love with either of the girls he's sleeping with.

He puts that thought aside though, and pushes Rachel's knees up to her ears when he's pounding into her, enjoys the way she sounds when she lets go and takes him with her.

* * *

><p>Santana's just lying in her room one afternoon in panties and a thermal shirt, taking a break and vegetating for a while before she has to get back to writing an essay for one of her history classes. She's burning out a little, and everything she was typing was starting to sound like gibberish, so she's lying flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling and listening to her iPod on shuffle.<p>

Puck's fingers wrapping around her ankle scare the ever loving fuck out of her. "Jesus fucking Christ," she breathes, tugging the earbuds out of her ears and sitting up to glare at him.

"Sorry," he says with a smirk, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I need a favor."

She lets out a little sigh, and her whole body slumps. "Puck, I'm so busy right now. I was just taking a break," she adds to explain why he just caught her literally doing nothing when she's saying she's busy.

"That's fine," he says quickly. "You don't have to do anything, really, just lay there." She just stares at him. "I wanna go down on you."

"What?"

"I just really wanna make you come," he tells her seriously, looking her straight in the eye. She's kind of impressed, because her white shirt is basically see-through and the bra she has underneath is black, and unless he checked her out before he scared the life out of her, his eyes haven't left her face once. It also scares her a little, because he's Puck and that's weird. "Let me, San."

She doesn't say anything, but her lack of a response somehow turns into a yes, because he tugs his shirt off and lays down on top of her, kissing her deep and slow like he only does sometimes, one hand pushing at her shirt while the other curves around the side of her neck. She threads her fingers through his hair when grinds his hips into hers, because she doesn't hate what he's doing at all, even if she doesn't understand.

He makes her come with his mouth three times, and he only stops then because she sobs out his name and pushes him away, closing her legs tight and trying to catch her breath. He moves to lie on his back beside her, one hand behind his head and the other stroking idly up and down the inside of her forearm. Her whole body is over-sensitive, so it's almost too much, just that, but she doesn't tell him to stop.

"What was that?" she asks after a moment, looking over at him.

He keeps his eyes on the ceiling and shrugs. She notices that he's hard in his jeans - she doesn't know why he's still wearing them - and reaches over to press her hand against his cock through the denim. "Don't," he says lowly.

"Fuck that." She says his name so he'll look at her. "There's no way." She ignores the weakness in her legs and gets on her knees beside him, opens his pants and tugs them down, dropping them on the floor once he's naked. (Because of course he wasn't wearing underwear.)

"Santana."

"Noah." She only calls him by his given name when she's feeling really silly or really serious. He knows the difference. "There's no way you're doing that for me and then just leaving." She leans down to press her lips to his, murmurs against them, "Tell me what you want."

He mutters a curse as he pushes her onto her back, spreading her legs wide and sliding into her slowly. They aren't using a condom, which they always, always do, but she doesn't mind because he feels so _good_. It's slow and hard, and he fucks her like he has something to prove, which is just as confusing as the rest of this thing was. He's being weird though, and has been for a while, and there's a big part of her - the part of her who loves him - that hates that.

* * *

><p>Santana goes over one Sunday afternoon carrying a twelve of Bud Select and a giant bag of Doritos and tells Finn that she needs someone to hang out and be a dude with her. Rachel's practicing like a crazy person for an end-of-semester showcase, and even though they all love her, it does get old after a while, hearing her sing the exact same parts of the exact same songs over and over. Puck's at work and the Saints are playing the Jets, and Santana's had this weird, inexplicable thing for the Saints for the last few years, so Finn agrees to be that dude.<p>

They're half-drunk when Rachel calls Finn just after the beginning of fourth quarter to tell him that she's invited Puck over. Finn sort of deflates, knocks back the rest of his beer and gets up to get another from the kitchen. Santana knows it's been a while since Puck and Rachel have been together, and she wonders what those little breaks do to Finn, if he thinks that maybe the last time was the _last_ time and he's finally going to have all of Rachel back to himself.

She loves Rachel. She does. Just like she loves Puck and, over the last year or so, has grown to love Finn. Sometimes though, she could just slap the girl across the face for making these two guys feel so shitty about themselves.

Finn brings her a new beer when he comes back from the kitchen, and he lets out this breath when he sits beside her that she doesn't think he actually meant for her to hear.

Fuck, this guy. It isn't like he's the nicest guy on the planet or whatever; he has flaws and he still fucks up and he has this bizarre knack for saying the most hurtful thing possible completely by accident. Still, he's also the sort of guy who would do anything for anyone, especially someone he loved. _Especially_ Rachel.

And she's drunk and thinking about how Finn is kind of fantastic and how she wants to make him feel better, and then she's leaning over and cupping her hand around his cheek, turning his head so that she can lay her lips against his, just gently.

He's the one who runs with it, turns his body towards hers and presses her into the back of the couch as he licks into her mouth. She loves the way he kisses. She'd forgotten, because it's been so long, but he actually is a great kisser. A kiss with Finn, this kiss, feels like the most important thing in the world because he's the kind of guy who can actually be in the moment and appreciate what he has right now instead of thinking about what comes next. Kissing isn't just a means to an end, and she loves that.

He curves one hand around her shoulder, swipes his thumb over her collarbone, and something about it is so sexy it makes her moan into his mouth.

Then he pulls away from her, leaving both of them wide-eyed and panting.

"Fuck," she breathes, then licks her lips.

"I-fuck, Santana, we-" He cuts himself off with a little huff of breath and looks at her helplessly. "I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

"No, Rachel and-"

"Rachel and Puck are downstairs having sex," Santana interrupts. She feels like a bitch when she sees Finn flinch. "We're drunk, and _I_ kissed _you_."

He shakes his head minutely. "It's cheating."

Fuck that. Santana is not that girl any more, and she isn't going to sit here beside him and let him make her into that girl again.

"So you're going to tell Rachel?" she asks, standing up and grabbing her phone.

"I-"

"You should. And when she asks if you liked it, tell her the truth."

She goes straight to the stairwell when she storms out of the apartment, out of habit, then realizes that she doesn't want to go back to her own apartment either, doesn't want to listen to Rachel and Puck right now.

She ends up pounding her way down eleven flights of stairs, then walking circles around the neighborhood wearing jeans and a hoodie and flip flops for nearly an hour. In December. In Boston. When she gets home, she takes a bath so hot that it turns her skin pink and makes her frozen toes tingle.

Then she avoids the hell out of Rachel, decides she's going to do the same with Finn.

* * *

><p>Finn feels like an ass.<p>

Then he thinks about what Rachel does with Puck, and he can't figure out if kissing Santana is the same or if he's just making excuses for himself, and he's guilty and confused as fuck.

He doesn't say anything to Rachel because telling her is just going to start a fight, and he'd rather not fight about something he doesn't even understand. Because he doesn't know why Santana kissed him or why he kissed her back and made it _more_.

He manages to push it aside to make it through finals week, and Rachel's distracted with her own stuff, but it's always in the back of his mind, making his chest feel a little tight.

* * *

><p>Rachel doesn't really know what to say when Finn tells her that he kissed Santana.<p>

He tells her that "it just happened," and he doesn't have feelings for her, but Rachel thinks that she should still feel...betrayed, maybe, that her boyfriend was kissing her roommate, her best friend.

But that would make her a hypocrite, and she detests hypocrisy. It isn't fair for her to be upset with Finn for kissing her best friend when she sleeps with his on a regular basis. And she isn't sure if it's this fear of hypocrisy or her guilt that makes her ask, "Do you want Santana?"

"Rachel." He shakes his head and takes her hand in both of his. "I love you."

"I know," she says with a little smile. Then she steels herself. "But do you _want_ Santana?"

His eyes narrow a little as he thinks, and though his eyes are on her, she can tell that his thoughts aren't. "I don't know," he finally answers after a moment.

"Then you should take your time and think about it," she tells him gently. Then she stands up, tells him that she has holiday shopping to take care of, and leaves the apartment.

She does go shopping. At least, she goes to a mall and wanders through some stores, though her mind is on anything but cashmere scarves or sparkly dresses or anything else that's on display. She's trying to remember how she got here, how she went from having a boyfriend whom she loved with her whole heart and was satisfied with, to being a girl who was in love with her boyfriend and slept with someone else on the side, the girl who considers letting that boyfriend whom she loves sleep with another girl.

And it doesn't matter how she tries to spin it in her head - and she does, selfishly - it comes back to being her own stupid fault. All because she couldn't just be happy with what she had.

All because she thought that she deserved to have it all.

* * *

><p>Santana and Puck are just hanging out in his room one night. She's lying on the bed flipping through an old issue of <em>Maxim<em>, and he's on the floor, playing guitar as he leans back against the mattress. She likes it, just hanging out, not worrying about anything or anyone else.

Winter break is her second-favorite time of year lately, right after summer break.

Honestly, school stresses her the fuck out enough, then she comes home and deals with everyone else's drama, which is stupid since, until recently, she wasn't involved in any of it.

The door is open, but Finn still knocks like he might be interrupting something, even though Puck and Santana aren't even talking right now, and he looks at her nervously. "Hey, can we talk?"

She nods and climbs off the bed, pretends that she can't see the interested look on Puck's face out of the corner of her eye. Finn leads her to his room, closes the door gently behind them and then just stands there sort of awkwardly.

"I told Rachel," he tells her after a moment.

She nods. "I know." The girls talked about it a little, though Santana didn't tell Rachel how sad Finn had been and how that was probably about half of the reason she kissed him. She doesn't really think it's any of her business to tell Rachel that shit; that's up to Finn, and if he wants to keep it to himself, he probably has some reason.

"I told her I liked it," he says softly, and she just closes her eyes for a second and presses her lips together, because what the fuck is she supposed to say to that? "She asked if I wanted you."

She hates herself for it, but she can't help asking, "Do you?"

His lips curve upwards, and it just reaches his eyes. "Kind of."

"Kind of?" she repeats. It's not good enough.

He reaches out and circles her wrist with his fingers. They're warm against her skin. "Yes." He says it softly, but not uncertainly, and he keeps his eyes on hers. "Do you want me, Santana?"

God help her, when he asks it like that, with his voice all low and quiet, she does. "You are all so fucked up,"

Finn offers her a wry little smile. "Yeah, we are. But you already know that, and you understand it as well as any of us do."

She laughs a little because that's probably true.

He tugs her a little closer to him and brings his free hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear. "I want you." He leans down, brushes his lips against hers just gently. "Think about it."

She nods, and he takes a step back from her, just watches as she turns and leaves his room.

She doesn't know, exactly, what she wants to do, but she doesn't want to be in this apartment any more, so she tells Puck to come downstairs and bring his guitar, and she spends the rest of the afternoon hanging out in her own bed, listening to Puck pluck out little melodies he's written.

* * *

><p>"Are you really okay with me sleeping with Finn?"<p>

Rachel's a little taken aback at the way Santana asks, but she probably shouldn't be. Her friend has never been shy, and she certainly never minces words.

She thought about it a lot before she really suggested it as an option to Finn, because she doesn't _really_ want to share him. She just thinks that's only fair, and if Finn could learn to be okay with her sleeping with Puck, she can certainly learn to be okay with Finn sleeping with Santana.

That's what she keeps telling herself, at least.

"Yes," she tells Santana, certainty in her voice and a smile on her lips. "I just want him to be happy, like I'm happy." That's the truth. "I want you to be happy, too." That's also the truth; she loves Santana and wants the girl to have everything.

Santana just nods and grabs a banana off the kitchen counter, then disappears back into her room.

Rachel's torn. Selfishly, she wants Santana to say no. She like having Finn all to herself, even if it does make her a hypocrite. But because she does love Finn, she wants him to have what he wants. And because she does love Santana, she wants the girl to be able to have with Finn a piece of what Rachel has with him, to know what it feels like to be that cherished.

It's probably going to hurt either way, so she tries to stop dwelling on it.

* * *

><p>"Dude, what's going on with you and Santana?" Puck asks Finn one morning when they're both in the kitchen getting coffee.<p>

All the three of the rest of them have been acting weird for the last couple of weeks, and he knows that it's something going on with Finn and Santana in particular, and he just really wants to know. Part of that's straight-up nosiness, and part of it's because he loves these fucking lunatics and he wants to make sure they're all okay or whatever.

Finn seems to struggle with what to say for a moment, and he looks sort of resigned when he says, "Santana might end up being my...well, you," he finishes lamely.

"Huh?"

Finn sighs. "If she's down, we might start sleeping together like you and Rachel do."

Puck bites down on his tongue to keep himself from saying any of the fucking stupid things flying through his head, just nods his head and picks up his coffee mug and walks back to his room.

It's weird that all of this has been going on and he doesn't know anything about it. He lives with Finn, he slept with Rachel three days ago, and Santana's his girl. (And he was inside her last week, too.)

He takes his time getting dressed, taking long, slow sips of coffee and half-watching whatever random shit is playing on his TV. It occurs to him that he's in the same position now that Santana's been in this whole time, being the odd one out when some admittedly weird-ass shit is going down, and he feels weird about it. He's not exactly mad or hurt or whatever, but it's _weird_ that all of this has been going on and no one's told him. It's weird to think about Finn fucking anyone but Rachel, to think about Santana fucking _Finn_. Fuck, to think about Rachel, like, sanctioning all of it.

He's always known, logically or whatever, that Santana was right when she said that they were all fucked up. Now, seeing it just a little bit from the outside (even though he's still in just as deep as he always was), he really understands how right she is.

* * *

><p>Puck comes home from work and announces that one of his bosses gave him and another guy a pair of tickets to tonight's Bruins-Penguins game, and Rachel's already told Finn all about her night out with some people from school to support one of their friends who's starring in some play (he forgets which one) at a local theater.<p>

Finn lets himself think, for just a split second, that maybe he'll get a chance to hang out with Santana, because it's been a while and he really wants to, but then he decides to just enjoy having a night to himself in the apartment. He wants to spend time with her because she's his friend, but he's trying to give her the space to figure out what she wants to do with...everything.

He makes up his mind to like, actually make a night of it, just 'cause. He decides to watch _The Godfather_ since it's been forever since he's seen it, pops a big bowl of popcorn and cracks open a beer before settling himself on the couch with all the lights in the room off.

Honestly, Rachel's ideas about ambiance or whatever have rubbed off, but she's usually right, and he thinks his movie night is going to be awesome.

He doesn't even see the horse head in the bed before there's a little tap at the door and Santana pushes through, locking it behind her. Finn pauses the movie quickly, reaches over to turn on the lamp on the end table. "Hey."

"Hi." She walks around the couch, picks up the remote, and turns off the TV. Her back is to the lamp, so her face is in the shadows. "Tell me why you want me."

He stands up and looks down at her, smiles a little. "You're beautiful," he tells her, because even in the shadows, she is, "but that's kind of the least of it. You're strong and tough all the time, Santana, and it's amazing, but I want to see you with your guard let down. I wanna see you lose control, come apart."

He reaches out to brush the tips of his fingers over the hollow of her throat, then outwards, across her collarbone, left exposed by her v-neck sweater. "Has anyone ever worshiped you, Santana?" He can hear her breath hitch. "I think you deserve that." He takes a step forward, so there's just a whisper of space between them and she has to tip her head back to keep her eyes on his. "I want to do that for you."

Her hands come up to his sides and fist in his shirt. "Finn."

Her brings his hand up to curve around her neck, then pushes it in to the back of her hair to cradle her head. "Do you want that?" he asks, his fingers massaging her scalp gently.

"Yes."

It comes out as a whimper, and he keeps his eyes on her for just a second longer to make sure that she really means it. And when he's satisfied that she does, he lowers his lips to hers, kisses her slowly, pulling back a bit when she tries to go faster than he wants to go.

He wants to worship her, and he wants to do it his way.

He wraps his free arm around her waist, pulls her body against his so he can feel her as he kisses her, pulling back slightly every time she tries to deepen it until she's whimpering into his mouth and digging her nails into his sides. He pulls his lips from hers completely, looks down at her and smiles at the way she's glaring at him. When he kisses her again, he opens his mouth and just brushes her tongue with his, and she full on moans, pressing her body closer to his as she tries to feel more.

He already loves this.

He walks slowly down the hall to his room, though he knows Santana wants him to go quicker, and when they get there, he takes his time peeling her clothes off her body before laying her down on his bed.

See, he wants to watch her fall apart more than once, and the best way to do that is to have her right on the edge the first time he touches her.

She's gorgeous, and he tells her that as he's trailing his lips across her chest, pausing to swipe his tongue over her nipple, and then again later when he's pushing into her for the first time.

Afterwards, she lays next to him with one hand pressed to the center of her chest, breathing hard and shivering just a little, so he tugs the blankets over her body and offers her a little smile.

"I can't believe I just did that," she whispers, and it almost breaks his heart, because she doesn't sound at all like herself, like the strong, self-assured woman she's basically always acted like, even when he knew she didn't feel so strong.

He reaches over to brush her bangs out of her face, even though he isn't sure that's actually helpful, touching her right now. "Do you regret it?"

Her lips quirk up just the tiniest bit, and he swears he sees a little glint in her eye. "No."

* * *

><p>Santana tells her that it happened before Finn does, and it's only because she sees Santana first. Finn sent Rachel a text, asked her to come over after she left the show, but she went to her place first to change and drop her stuff, and Santana was sitting on the couch, obviously waiting for Rachel since the TV wasn't on and the girl didn't even have her phone.<p>

It's fine, and that's what she tells Santana. She told them to do it, and she meant it, even if it does make her stomach clench to hear that they went through with it.

"Tell me you aren't mad," Santana says, her voice almost pleading. Rachel can see the uncertainty in her eyes, and it's so uncharacteristic that it makes her stomach clench again, this time in sympathy for what Santana is feeling. It reminds Rachel of the way she felt the first time she was with Noah.

"I'm not mad," she says firmly, and it's easy because she really, really _isn't_. She's feeling a lot of things, but anger isn't one of them. "I want you to be happy, Santana. And Finn."

She takes her time changing out of her pretty red dress, brushes her teeth and combs her hair before heading upstairs to Finn's apartment.

She finds herself wondering, as she makes her way slowly up those three flights, if she'll want to kiss Finn when she sees him. It's an absurd thought, but she also can't imagine kissing a man after he's just been with another woman. She wonders if she'll still feel that when she sees him, when it's Finn and the other woman was Santana, and Rachel _told_ them to do it.

Finn's sitting on the couch watching a movie when she lets herself into the apartment, though he flicks it off as soon as he sees it's her. "Hey," he says with a little smile. "I have something to tell you."

"I already know," she tells him quietly, moving around the couch and standing beside him. "Santana."

He looks pained. "I just didn't want to tell you on the phone, Rach."

"I know. It's fine." She nods and lowers herself to sit beside him, pulling her legs up. "As long as you're happy."

He smiles. "I love you, you know that?"

She nods, and when he leans in to kiss her, she finds that she wants it, and she certainly doesn't want to pull away from him. He's still Finn, and it's still the same as it was when she kissed him this afternoon when they were hanging out in her bedroom. "I love you, too," she murmurs against his lips. "Can I watch the rest of the movie with you?"

* * *

><p>Finn goes to spend his Sunday with some of his friends from the football team, hanging out and watching NFL games and doing whatever the hell else, and Puck waits about five minutes after he leaves to call Rachel and ask her to go for coffee.<p>

Generally, Puck doesn't initiate things with Rachel. He waits for her to call or text or show up, and while they do just hang out sometimes, it's not often that he initiates that either. But he's kind of worried about her, thinking about how she's taking this new Finn and Santana thing, and he wants to feel it out.

They meet in the lobby of their building, and she's wearing a robin's egg blue wool coat with her hair in a ponytail, and she's fucking adorable, even though he can see in her eyes that she's a little preoccupied. "New?" he asks, tugging the sleeve of her coat as they walk outside.

"A birthday present from my fathers," she answers with a smile.

They chat as they walk the block and a half to a cafe they both like, and she chooses a table near the back while he gets their coffee, a vanilla soy latte with cinnamon for her and his Americano.

"It's been a while since we've done this," she says when he sits across from her, setting her drink in front of her. "Just spent time together."

He nods. During school breaks, they do spend less time together, just because they aren't going to campus together every day, though the longer they're in school, the less they interact when they're there. Their different concentrations pull them in different directions. It kind of sucks, because she really is one of his best friends. And truthfully, it's hard to decide most days, of the three of them - Finn, Rachel, and Santana - who he's closest to.

"How are you?" he asks quietly.

She looks at him sharply. "Don't do that." He raises his eyebrows. "I told them to do it. Don't make it into more than it is, Noah."

He rolls his eyes. "Don't try to fuck around with me, Rachel. I know you. You're freaking out about Finn and Santana just like you freaked out about us back in the beginning."

"I don't want anything to change," she says quietly.

His eyebrows come together as he watches her pick at the little cardboard sleeve around her drink with her fingernails. "You do know that we can't all go on like this forever, right?" She looks up at him, and he can't read the expression in her eyes. "Someday it's all going to fall apart."

She bites her lip. "That doesn't have to be now."

He laughs and leans back in his chair, takes a long drink of his coffee. "Not if you quit freaking out."

"You're useless," she half-laughs, rolling her eyes. "It's just strange, sharing Finn. Understanding what it must be like for him, with me." She shrugs her shoulders a little, takes a tiny sip of her drink. "I think I just need time to get used to it."

Puck nods, slides his foot forward under the little table so it's sitting next to hers, the sides of their calves pressed together through their jeans. Rachel's always been an affectionate sort of girl, and even something that innocent, he knows, can make her feel better, feel closer to someone.

Santana is out shopping with friends when Puck and Rachel get back to her apartment, so when they go to her room to listen to the album by some new artist Rachel wanted him to hear, it isn't a surprise that they end up kissing and undressing and teasing one another. What is a surprise, even to Puck, is the way that he's treating her. It's different than it usually is, gentler and softer and slower, and when she falls over the edge and takes him with her, it catches him completely off guard.

Neither of them mentions it, acknowledges that it was anything different, but Rachel has her back to him when she pulls her little camisole over her head, and he leans forward to brush his lips over the side of her neck before she can put on her sweater. She tilts her head to the side, lets out this quiet, sexy breath, and he can't stop himself from putting his hands on her hips and pulling her back against his body.

She looks like herself again when he leaves later, and that's good enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for the excellent, supportive reviews! I so appreciate that you all took a chance on this story, and hooray for not bashing characters just because it's easy! Seriously though, you're all amazing for the alerts and favorites. Thank you!

* * *

><p>Santana and Finn basically operate under the same rules as Puck and Rachel: Finn doesn't leave Rachel to go to Santana, they tell the girl either before or right after it happens, and they keep all the details to themselves. Really, it boils down to the fact that Finn and Rachel's relationship is more important than the sex that either of them has with Santana or Puck, respectively.<p>

The real difference, as far as the four of them as a group are concerned, is that now when Puck goes downstairs to sleep with Rachel, Santana goes upstairs and has sex with Finn instead of just chilling on the couch.

Rachel gets strep throat just after the beginning of the semester. She puts herself in complete seclusion while she's still contagious, then refuses to speak at all unless it's absolutely necessary after some doctor (jackass) tells her it could help her throat heal faster. She's sleeping as much as possible and taking vitamins like a crazy person, and Santana just doesn't even know what to do with this. The apartment is fucking weird without all of the Rachel noises, but the girl isn't speaking and is nearly always asleep if she's home.

Santana isn't good with sick people. Rachel, apparently, is like a fucking nurse, because she's always the one bringing soup and juice and drugs when one of them is sick, but Santana just can't deal. She leaves the apartment a lot.

One night, she's in her room doing some reading for class when she hears Rachel start coughing down the hall, which is kind of the worst part of all of this. See, the girl's trying inot/i to actually cough, lest she damage her vocal cords, so it comes out as this tiny, horrible, pathetic sound, and it nearly always turns into something that sounds like Rachel is choking half to death.

Santana cannot sit here and listen to it again.

So she grabs her textbook and her keys and heads upstairs. She doesn't know if the guys are home, and she doesn't care. She just needs a place to read where she doesn't have to listen to Rachel's pathetic hacking.

Puck's sitting on the couch with his guitar when she walks in, playing something sort of slow and sad. "Hey," he greets, glancing over at her. "What's up?"

"Can I study here?" she asks, holding up her book. "Rachel's coughing is driving me nuts, and I can't focus."

He shrugs. "Whatever. Use Finn's room."

"What's wrong with your room?"

"'m going to bed soon," he tells her. "And he isn't home."

"Fine."

She gets most of the way through her assignment before she falls asleep on her stomach, her head at the foot of the bed and a pink highlighter dangling between her fingers.

She wakes up when Finn rubs one of his hands up her back, hesitating between her shoulder blades before moving back down. "Hey," he says with a grin when her eyes open. "What're you doing here?"

She takes a deep breath and furrows her eyebrows at the highlighter in her hand. "Rachel was coughing and I couldn't concentrate."

"Hmm." His hand is still moving up and down her back, which really isn't motivating her to get up and go anywhere. She thinks he knows that, especially when she says his name and his grin gets wider. "You're kind of adorable when you sleep."

She scoffs, turning onto her side to face him properly. "You're ridiculous, Finn."

"And you're adorable." He catches the front of her hoodie - Puck's hoodie, actually, stolen in high school - in his fist when he leans down to kiss her, shifting so he's lying next to her as his lips move with hers slowly. He kisses up her jaw to trace the shell of her ear with the tip of his tongue. "I want you," he murmurs, his breath warm against her neck. It makes goosebumps rise over her body, and she wants him, too.

It's slow and quiet, and she hears herself breathing out his name when she lets go.

His bed is warm and soft and comfortable, and she finds the scent of her own perfume along with Rachel's shampoo. She doesn't necessarily want to leave, but she has to. Finn walks her to the front door, kisses her sweetly and tells her good night.

* * *

><p>Santana's parents send her to a spa in Arizona over spring break as an early birthday gift and, Rachel thinks, because her father is still so proud of his daughter for choosing Harvard. Finn makes plans with some of the guys from the football team to fly down to Myrtle Beach, mostly to make sure they don't all drink themselves stupid or get herpes from sleeping with questionable women. Finn isn't the only attached guy going on the trip though, and Rachel trusts him more than almost anyone in the world, so she isn't worried.<p>

Besides, he already has two women at home. She can't imagine that he would need to go away to have sex with someone else.

Finn leaves on Friday night, and Santana on Saturday morning. Rachel and Noah decide that getting drunk is way to start off a proper spring break, so they go to a Mexican restaurant in Roxbury and manage to drink an entire pitcher of margaritas before their meal is even served. She gets so drunk, in fact, that she forgets she's in a cab - with a driver who has a rear view mirror - and lets Noah slide his hand up her skirt and press his fingers against the front of her panties, moans into his mouth, and rolls her hips against his hand.

They end up spending most of the next afternoon recovering from sore muscles and hangovers, drinking Gatorade and ordering pizza, and when Noah notices the bruise he left on her hip with his hand, he pushes her back onto the couch, skims his lips over the mark, and apologizes quietly.

She agrees to watch _Tombstone_ with him on Monday night, and even though it's interesting and she enjoys it, westerns still aren't her favorite thing and she was up at seven to go to a dance class. She falls asleep with her head resting on the arm of the couch and her feet in his lap, wakes up when she hears him saying her name quietly and opens her eyes to see him kneeling in front of the couch. "Do you want to go back downstairs?"

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "No." Even the idea of walking to elevator, which she rarely uses, sounds awful. She just wants to sleep.

He smiles at her a little. "C'mon." He helps her up off the couch, then leads her down the hall to his bedroom. He helps her out of her jeans, so when she slips into bed with him, she's in just her panties and tank top, and she's asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow

He wakes her up the next morning with his hand between her legs, slips into her from behind and has her practically sobbing out his name before she feels completely awake.

Rachel finds that she likes spending the one-on-one time with Noah. She always forgets. She has a habit of getting caught up in her own thing, and this semester has been no exception. The competition in her classes is fierce, and things have been different with Finn since he and Santana... In any case, having a week with nothing else to do, really, but relax and spend time with Noah reminds her how much fun they have together. It's just easy.

She misses Finn, and she's happy when he calls to talk to her, but she finds that she doesn't miss him the way she did the last time they were apart for more than a day or two, when he went home for Christmas last year.

She just doesn't have time to miss him.

* * *

><p>Santana throws herself into school work the second she gets back to Boston. She's taking the LSAT in June, and she's on her way to graduating with honors. She doesn't have time to fuck around.<p>

Figuratively speaking, of course. If she doesn't get laid, she might kill someone.

She's sitting at her desk working on a paper for her international studies class one night when she hears Puck come in, and she doesn't even skip a beat before she's closing her laptop and gathering her notes. Rachel and Puck are laughing about something in the kitchen when she goes out the front door, and Santana doesn't take time to say anything. Honestly, she isn't even bothered by leaving. No one ever asked her to do it, but it makes everything easier, not to mention the fact that it's hard to concentrate on various United Nations resolutions when she can hear Rachel moaning down the hall, which is exactly what's going to happen before the night is over.

She doesn't see Finn when she lets herself into the guys' apartment, but the door is unlocked, so she knows he must be around. She's already set herself up at the kitchen table and is back to work on her paper when he steps into the room and sees her there.

"Hey," he greets, looking surprised. "How long have you been here?"

She shrugs, not looking up from the screen. "Fifteen minutes." He steps up behind her and skims his hands over her shoulders, and she knows this game. "Don't. I want to finish this, Finn."

"Okay," he says easily, but his fingertips are still grazing the side of her neck. She concentrates on not slowing the speed of her fingers as she types. "How much longer?"

She takes a slow, even breath. She doesn't actually _have_ to finish this tonight. It isn't due for three days, but she wants to finish as much as she can now so she can get into her LSAT study materials. Except Finn's definitely working her up and she's kind of losing her train of thought.

So she saves her paper and closes her laptop and lets him lead her down the hall to his bedroom.

* * *

><p>Summer is when the cracks start showing. At least, Finn can see them.<p>

Santana gets her LSAT scores back at the beginning of July, and they're kick ass. No one's surprised. The three of them take her out to dinner to celebrate, then to her favorite bar, where they proceed to get drunk and silly and trade sloppy kisses. All of them, actually, except Puck and Finn, and it's the first time they've ever done anything like that in front of one another. Finn finds that it's weird to kiss Santana anywhere but one of their bedrooms, weirder still that he's doing it in front of Rachel. It's weird to see his girlfriend put her hand on Puck's chest, curl her fingers into his tee shirt, and pull him down for a kiss. As weird as it is, it's like he can't look away, even when Rachel's got her tongue in Puck's mouth and she's kind of pressing herself against him, and he doesn't even really feel jealous of that stuff any more

Seeing Santana and Rachel kiss, giggly and kind of messy, is just hot.

But then the high wears off, and Santana starts researching law schools and reality sort of sets in. Rachel and Puck are both going to graduate next May, and Finn doesn't know what Puck's going to do, but Rachel's going to New York. That's always been the plan, and he knows that hasn't changed. Santana will be going to law school somewhere so she can start really making them all feel inferior to her.

Finn's still going to be in Boston. He red-shirted as a freshman, so he still has another year of football and to finish up his degree in social work. He hasn't really let himself think about it much before, but after this year, he and Rachel are going to be in separate cities for at least a year. And yeah, Boston and New York are close, but it's not like there's a ton of free time in either of their lives, and he doesn't see that changing.

As much as Finn's life will stay the same, everything around him is going to change, everything. No one else talks about it, so Finn tries to pretend that it isn't a big deal.

* * *

><p>He knows it's weird, but Puck actually loves spending summer in the city.<p>

He's always been kind of an outside guy, playing sports and being by the water and whatever, and he still finds ways to do that stuff. There are parks and pools and the four of them take a day trip (planned by Rachel, of course), out to some crazy beach where he and Finn get buzzed on Sam Adams summer lager and Puck ends up making out with Santana in the backseat of Rachel's car on the drive back into the city. But their building is in one of those neighborhoods where someone makes sure that there are planters full of flowers on the sidewalks and hanging from the fancy lamp posts, and the cafe down the block has kick ass iced coffee, and Puck is _always_ down with girls in sundresses that show off their legs and their cleavage, and those dresses are everywhere.

There's also the fact that both Rachel and Santana run around the apartments wearing next to nothing, which he is totally a fan of.

He wakes up one morning and decides that it's too hot to make coffee in the kitchen, even though the air conditioning is running and the apartment is totally comfortable. Really, he just uses the heat as an excuse to go get iced coffee down the street

He's walking back into the building when he sees Santana coming up the block, jogging in a pair of tiny shorts and a sports bra, her hair up in a ponytail. She offers him a little smile when she sees him, slows to a stop in front of the building where he's waiting for her. "Hey," she greets breathlessly, pulling her foot up behind her to stretch out her quad.

Her stomach and chest are glistening with sweat. "It's too hot for running," he tells her, watching a droplet of sweat slide between her tits, then catches her rolling her eyes when he looks at her face.

"It felt like a good idea when I woke up," she says, switching legs.

Yeah, he doesn't care. He just really, really wants to lick the sweat off her body until she begs him to fuck her. Totally normal, and he digs the filthy look in her eyes when he tells her that.

He likes the way her voice sounds when she begs, too.

* * *

><p>Once school starts again, Rachel insists that they all make the most of their senior year, even Finn, even if he will be in school for another year after this. They're all working hard, of course, but she wants them to go to the parties and the performances and the games, and she loves the role of organizer. She makes a master calendar of important events for each of them, coerces Santana and badgers Noah until they've all agreed to abide by her schedule as much as possible.<p>

Actually, Noah is easier to convince than Santana. Rachel isn't generally a proponent of using sex as a weapon or a bargaining chip, but she knows how much Noah loves her mouth and how she can use it, and if the promise of oral sex means spending time with her friends, it can't be a bad thing, can it?

They all go to BU's first home game to cheer Finn on, sit in the student section even though Finn got them better tickets. Noah insists that it's the only way to watch a college football game when you're still in college, even if it isn't _your_ college, and Rachel isn't really inclined to disagree. She wears the Boston University tee shirt Finn got her back when they first moved to the city and waves a maroon pom-pon. She cheers whenever Noah does because, for all of her years of being the quarterback's girlfriend and watching games and learning about the sport, she still misses things sometimes, especially on defense.

They take Finn out to dinner after BU wins, then he takes them to the team after party. It feels almost like it did back in high school, with Finn leading her around the room with his hand on the small of her back, showing everyone that she belongs to him and he's proud of her, proud to be with her.

But then Noah finds her when she's standing outside on the balcony of the apartment they're all at, getting some fresh air and taking a moment away from the loud music and room full of people she mostly doesn't know.

He leans back against the railing where she's resting her hands. "I like your hair like this," he tells her, reaching out to tug at the end of the braid over her shoulder.

She smiles over at him. "Thank you." She watches him take a sip of beer from the bottle. "We're running out of nights like this." He nods without looking at her. "What are you going to do after graduation, Noah?"

He turns towards her, his eyes narrowing just a bit. "Where's this coming from, Rachel?"

"I guess I'm getting nostalgic," she offers, shrugging one shoulder.

"Knock it off. There're months before we have to think about any of that."

She shakes her head. "Not really."

"Rachel." He puts his hands on her shoulders and turns her so they're facing each other. "Stop freaking out."

She lets out a little laugh and tips her head back when he leans down, lets him kiss her gently. It's probably inappropriate, kissing Noah at a party full of Finn's friends, but she wants it, and she finds herself running her thumb along his jaw before she pulls away. "I'll try," she promises in a whisper.

* * *

><p>Finn's end-of-season banquet falls on the same night as Berklee's alumni appreciation dinner. The banquet is required of all players, so Finn can't skip it, and Puck and Rachel are both slated to perform at the Berklee dinner.<p>

Santana thinks it's strange that this is the first time that Finn and Rachel haven't been able to go to one another's important events. Honestly, how is it possible that they haven't had this exact problem come up before, as busy as they both are?

The three of them are sitting in the girls' apartment, watching _America's Best Dance Crew_ and chatting during the commercials when Rachel says, "Santana should be your date."

Finn looks over at her. "What?"

"Just because I can't go doesn't mean that you should go alone. Unless Santana has plans, you should ask her."

"Guys. I'm right here," Santana points out, looking at the pair of them pointedly. They're on the couch, Finn kind of sprawled out and Rachel sitting with her legs pulled up, while Santana sits in an armchair.

Rachel just smiles at her like she's being silly, then looks at Finn meaningfully until he rolls his eyes at Rachel and looks over at Santana. "Are you free on Friday night?"

"I am not going on a pity date, Hudson."

"But I'm the one being pitied," he points out, and she agrees because he's right and she doesn't have anything else planned.

Rachel has to be at her dinner super early to warm up or whatever, so Finn is the one who watches Santana zip the side of her navy, one-shoulder dress, then clasps the little white gold bracelet around her wrist.

"You look good in a suit," she tells him when they're riding down to the lobby in the elevator. It's been a while since she's seen him in one, and she'd forgotten just how good.

"You look good in everything," he replies. It's almost pathetic, and she should give him shit for it, but she can tell by the shy little grin he has when he says it that he means it, so she lets it go with a murmured thanks.

She didn't quite grasp how elegant this banquet was going to be. Like, he helped her choose a dress from her closet and mentioned that there would be alumni and all sorts of important people around, but still. They're in this ballroom on BU's campus, and the place just sort of oozes money in a way that Santana's used to seeing at Harvard, but never really associated with Finn at all.

He gets her a glass of champagne and leads her around the room with his hand just resting on the small of her back, which she really doesn't hate. He introduces her by name to a couple of alumni donors, and she can tell by the appraising look that one of them gives her (and she's grateful it isn't creepy) that he thinks she's Finn's girlfriend.

She sort of realizes all at once that she's out on a date with Finn.

She's out on a date with Finn Hudson, her best friend's boyfriend.

Of course, she's been sleeping with her best friend's boyfriend for quite some time now, so maybe she should be more preoccupied with that. But no.

She finishes her champagne just a little bit too quickly and accepts another from a passing waiter to settle her nerves, which might not be the best idea since she hasn't eaten in hours, but fuck it. Honestly, she thinks this would be a lot easier to handle if she was drunk, but it's such a bad idea. This is actually important to Finn, and she's too old to be playing the sloppy drunk girl in a pretty dress.

So she tells the part of her mind that's freaking out to fuck off and focuses on having fun with Finn.

And it is fun, more than she expected. Honestly, she thinks it must be the football thing, because they're seated at a table with some guy she knows has ridiculous money (she can see the Cartier tank watch on his wrist when he gestures at her from across the table), but it isn't stuffy at all. Everyone's joking and laughing, and she ends up being totally glad that she came.

Cartier guy asks her to dance, so she stands up and lets him take her hand, glances over her shoulder at Finn, and shoots him a wink that makes him laugh. He comes up and cuts in at the end of the song, putting both hands on her waist like they're seventeen again.

"You're pretty good at this," she tells him, toying with the hair at the nape of his neck. She ignores the little look that he gives her because yeah, she knows how much he likes that. "Being all schmoozy and whatever."

He shakes his head at her. "You're better at it than I am. And you look good doing it," he adds, and it makes her laugh. His hands slide just a little lower on her hips when he says, "Seriously, 'Tana, this dress..."

She smiles up at him. "It's good, right?" He nods and pulls her a little closer to him, and it's like she can feel the air shift between them. "Finn."

"I just wanna, like..._have_ you," he murmurs, his eyes dark as he gazes down at her. She doesn't _mean_ to tighten her fingers in his hair, but she does, and he makes this quiet, low noise in the back of his throat that she wouldn't have heard if she wasn't so close to him. "Santana."

She takes a deep breath and looks at him because she doesn't know what to say. His fingers dig into her hips just a little bit, so she nods her head and they leave the dance floor once the song ends.

They don't rush. They take their time saying goodbye to all the people Finn needs to say goodbye to, and he loops his arm through hers when they're walking across campus to the parking lot. He even walks her to the passenger side of the car, and she really can't stand it any more. She pushes her hand into the back of his hair and pulls him down for a kiss, moaning when he licks into her mouth a little before pulling away and walking around the car.

They go back to the girls' apartment, and she almost feels guilty or dirty or something when Finn grabs his phone after to send Rachel a text letting her know what went down. It's normal; it's what they always do. This time it just feels...different.

But then he turns off his phone and pulls her against his chest, pressing his lips to her temple, and she pushes the feeling away.

* * *

><p>Finn wants to make the most of winter break. No matter how much he's tried to push it aside, he knows that this is the last time the four of them are going to be together like this, knows that this is the last time Rachel is ever going to be able to spend four weeks just fucking around with him. Plus, finals week kicked his ass and he just really needs some time to decompress and stuff.<p>

One of Rachel's singing friends (and yeah, that's totally how he thinks of them) throws a party at the house she shares with her boyfriend, and Rachel and Finn go together. He knows a couple of people from being around Rachel for the last three and a half years, but it's mostly people he doesn't know all drinking this crazy rum punch that's so strong he can literally smell the booze from ten feet away.

Finn just drinks Sprite because he drove, and part of him wants to tell Rachel to take it easy. She's still a total lightweight and she hates being hungover, but really, she's a grown up. If she wants to get completely wasted and throw up and be miserable tomorrow, that's her business.

Plus, rum makes her sort of handsy and just a little sloppy, which generally works to his advantage.

She pushes him down into an armchair in the living room and sits across his lap, resting the hand that isn't holding her cup on his shoulder, her fingers just brushing the side of his neck. "What do you think of my boobs in this sweater?" she asks, and it's so random that all he can do is laugh at her. "I think they're spectacular."

He shakes his head at her a little. "They're awesome, babe." And yeah, the are. It's not like he's lying.

"I have a secret," she tells him, biting her lip. He raises his eyebrows, so she leans in until her lips are against his ear and whispers, "I'm not wearing any panties, Finn."

Her eyes are dark when she pulls back enough that he can see them. She's drunk and he wants to know if she's bluffing, so he slides his hand down her back, then slips his index finger past the waistband of her jeans, and yeah, there's nothing there. He wants to take her home immediately. "Fuck, you're hot."

She leans in and kisses him hard, and he can taste the rum on her tongue that reminds him that she's seriously, seriously drunk right now, and if she was any other girl, he'd feel guilty about thinking about taking her home and taking advantage of her. But she's Rachel and he's been with her forever, so it's not really taking advantage at all, right?

She insists on finishing the last of her drink when he suggests that they go home, which is like half a cup.

He should have told her no and taken it away. She was drunk enough that he would have forgotten.

Now she's drunk enough that she's alternating between leaning over the console to run her hand over the front of his jeans while he's driving and then leaning back in her seat complaining about feeling nauseous. It's screwing with his head, because he's turned on and about half-hard in his jeans, but he's also worried about how drunk she is and stuff.

He has to remind her how to walk when they get back to their building, but she recovers enough to cross the lobby to the elevator without incident. Then, apparently, she's sober enough to kiss him again, pressing her body against his as they go up. He basically gives up on the idea of getting laid tonight when she pulls away from him and moans about the elevator making her car sick. At this point, he just wants to get Rachel to bed without her throwing up or falling down or something.

"I don't feel good," she mumbles, leaning against the wall next to her door while he's unlocking it. "I just want to go to sleep."

"I know, babe. You'll be all right."

Finn gets her to her room and out of her jeans (fuck) and sweater, pulling one of his old McKinley tee shirts that she stole forever ago over her head. He makes her drink a glass of water and eat a few crackers and puts the bottle of Advil on her bedside table so she doesn't have to go looking for it in the morning when she feels like dying. He sets her waste basket next to the bed for good measure, then kisses her forehead and tells her that he'll be down to check on her in the morning. She's sort of toying with her phone when he leaves, but he figures it's just a matter of time before she passes out.

He can see a light under Santana's door when he's leaving, so he sticks his head in and lets her know what's up. He doesn't love the idea of Rachel being this drunk and all on her own, but he knows that she hates it when people _see_ her this drunk - and the aftermath. She's told him as much, more than once, and it's one of those weird things they always end up arguing about, and he doesn't want to fight with her over this break. He'll leave her to be drunk and hungover and miserable alone because it's what she wants.

He's standing in his kitchen pulling a grilled cheese sandwich out of the George Foreman when Puck comes up the hall, pulling a tee shirt over his head. "What's up?"

Puck holds up his phone. "Rachel called me," he says quietly. There's this voice Puck uses when he's going to sleep with Rachel, one that's just a little different, though Finn hasn't ever really been able to figure out why or how. He's using it now.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Later, man."

Finn just stand there and listens to the front door open and close. Rachel just broke one of their rules. One of the ones they never really talked about, but all four of them understood. Rachel and Finn never leave each other to be with Puck or Santana. If they're together, they're together and that's it.

And Rachel just called Puck to come fuck her.

He definitely doesn't want to eat a grilled cheese now. He kind of wants to hit something, though strangely, not Puck's face this time around. Puck had no idea that Finn and Rachel were going out, so it's not like he's stepping on Finn's toes or whatever. He doesn't want to hit Rachel, but he does kind of want to ask her what the fuck's going on.

He goes to bed with a knot in his stomach, can't even think about falling asleep until he hears Puck come in a couple of hours later.

He wakes up the next morning when his phone rings with a text from Rachel. _I feel like death. Why did you let me drink so much?_

He sighs when it all comes flooding back and decides to ignore her. He's pissed off, and if he talks to her right now, he's just going to be mean. He kind of thinks she deserves it, but she'll look all pathetic and hungover and he'll lose his nerve.

* * *

><p>Finn's been acting strangely for the last few days, but he won't tell Rachel what's going on. She's learned, over the years, to respect the right another person has to keep whatever he's thinking about to himself, so she tries to let it go, even though she thinks it's something that she did. He seemed annoyed with her the morning after they went out together, but she assumes it's because he warned her not to drink so much and she did anyhow, paid for it with a wicked hangover that took her an entire day to recover from.<p>

She's lying in bed watching a Christmas movie on Lifetime (even Jews can appreciate borderline-asinine holiday romance) on Sunday evening when Santana comes bursting into the apartment with Finn. Rachel knows they went to dinner somewhere, and Santana is obviously buzzed, nearly drunk, in fact, teetering a bit in her high-heeled black leather boots when they go past Rachel's room. Neither of them even glances at her door, despite the fact that it's half-open and the glow of the television and the lamp on her bedside table make it obvious that she's there. It doesn't bother her, not really, though it isn't usually like Finn to completely ignore her.

She's nearly caught up in the plot of this ridiculous movie when she hears, _'Fuck. Finn!'_ coming from down the hall.

Hearing Finn and Santana having sex is like being slapped in the face.

This has all been going on for a while between the four of them, Finn and Santana for a year and Rachel and Noah for another year before that, and despite all of the shared space, they've managed to keep things quite separate. It's been a conscious effort, if an unspoken one, to keep everyone's feelings protected and safe. In fact, the only time Rachel has even seen Finn _kiss_ Santana, all four of them were drunk and behaving like ridiculous children. The fact that they're disregarding her presence and doing this now is hurtful.

And, quite frankly, it kind of pisses her off.

Rachel knows that Santana isn't quiet. Neither girl is. She's heard Santana and Noah together plenty of times in the nearly three years they've been living together, and she's never been bothered, never really even been too embarrassed about it. But this, hearing Santana moan Finn's name, listening to the girl come apart because of things that Rachel's boyfriend is doing to her body, is another thing entirely.

She considers leaving, but she doesn't really have anywhere to go. Noah is out with friends and while she could certainly go get coffee or something, she doesn't think that she should have to leave her own home just because someone else is being inconsiderate.

She ends up grabbing her iPod and a magazine and going into the living room. She's still sitting there when Finn comes walking through an hour later, his shirt wrinkled and his hair a little messy. "Hey."

"I can't believe you just did that to me," she says softly, gesturing down the hall when he looks at her. "Where I could hear."

He scoffs a little. "Really, Rachel?"

She tosses her magazine onto the coffee table. "Yes, really, Finn. We've never done that." He's just standing in the middle of the living room watching her. "Do you know what it was like to hear that? How that felt?"

"Maybe it felt a little like it did when you told me you wanted to go to sleep, but then you called Puck to come down here and fuck you," he says flatly, crossing his arms and not quite looking her in the eye.

She gapes at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Friday night. You drank a truckload of rum, and when I brought you home, you told me you were tired. So I put you in bed, gave you water and Advil, and went home. And then you called Puck."

"I don't remember that," she says, standing up and moving towards him. He takes a step back, so she stops. "I don't remember being with Puck. I don't even remember you bringing me home, Finn. You can't be mad at me. I was drunk."

"Fuck, Rachel!" he explodes. She flinches because he startles her. "That makes it worse!"

"How?"

"Because when you were drunk and your inhibitions or whatever were gone, you wanted _him_. You want him, Rachel, not me."

It hurts, the tone of his voice and the way he's looking at her, like she's a completely different person than the one he's been with for years. And she doesn't remember any of it, doesn't remember seeing Noah at all that night, though it clears an awful lot of things up, including the origin of the bruise on the outside of her left thigh that she now realizes is from Noah's thumb. Seeing how much this is hurting Finn is making her own chest ache.

"That isn't true," she murmurs after a moment. "I love you."

"It doesn't feel like you love me," he says sharply, and something shifts between them. Or maybe it's just something inside of her.

"Well, listening to you fuck Santana doesn't really make me feel great either, Finn," she counters meanly, and his head literally snaps back at the words. "Instead of talking to me about it, you decided to behave like an ass."

He shrugs. "You acted like a slut. I guess we're even."

She feels like she's been slapped, except it would probably hurt less if Finn hit her. "Sex isn't a weapon, Finn."

He laughs bitterly and turns towards the door a little. "I don't want to talk about this any more. I don't even want to look at you right now."

"Finn."

"You're the one who started all this!" he shouts, glaring at her. He's breathing hard and looking at her like he wants her to say something, but she's too busy trying to swallow the lump in her throat. "Just...whatever, Rachel."

He turns his back on her and slams the door when he leaves. She's just standing there in the middle of her living room, blinking back tears and thinking about what he said.

It is her fault. She's the one who was selfish, who wanted more than she had even though Finn has always been better to her than anyone else. God, until today, Finn at his worst was better to her than anyone else, and because that wasn't enough for her, because she wanted not just something else but _someone_ else, they're here.

"I'm sorry," Santana says quietly. Rachel turns and sees her standing into the door frame that leads to the hallway in sweats and a hoodie. "I didn't mean to cause problems."

"You didn't," Rachel answers. "It's my own fault."

Santana just nods and goes back down the hallway, closing her bedroom door behind her.

* * *

><p>Once Santana figures out what's going on - Rachel tells her over coffee the next morning - she can't decide who's wrong. They're both wrong, really, which also makes them both right. She does know that she wants to stay out of it, and she's pissed off at Finn for trying his best to drag her in.<p>

Puck knows what's going on, but he's staying as far out of it as he can given the circumstances. Rachel's kind of freezing him out a little, out of guilt, Santana assumes, which isn't totally fair, even if Santana gets it. She tells him it's better this way and makes a point of hanging out with him so that neither of them has to be with Finn or Rachel.

No one has ever said Santana was the most mature person in the world, though she may very well be the most mature person in this bizarre foursome.

Rachel's in the girls' kitchen baking cookies, so Puck and Santana are hanging out in the living room at the guys' place, watching _Pulp Fiction_ until until he has to go to work. She's lying with her head in his lap, and he's kind of putting her to sleep, running his fingers through her hair idly.

Her whole body tenses up when the front door opens and Finn comes in, shrugging out of his coat as he and Puck greet one another. Finn walks down the hall, and Santana turns a little so she can look up at Puck's face. "Rachel is so mad at him."

"I know."

"So am I."

His lips curve upwards just a little bit and he pushes his fingers into the hair just next to her temple like she loves. "I know."

She hears Finn come back up the hallway and walk into the kitchen. "I bet she'd let you do some crazy shit to her right now," she says, grinning up at Puck. She knows how her voice is carrying into the kitchen. She's a bitch and she's pissed off.

"Santana," Puck says warningly.

"What? You don't want to jump on the chance to rail her while you've got it?"

"_Santana_."

Finn comes out of the kitchen and stops at the end of the couch, looking down at Puck and Santana sitting there. "I thought you had to work," he says to Puck, even though his eyes are lingering on her.

She sits up when she feels Puck shift. "Yeah. I have to leave in like, twenty minutes. I should go change, actually."

Finn nods. "San, can we talk?"

She lets out a sigh and turns to glare at Puck, the traitor. He's supposed to be taking care of her like she's been taking care of him. "I don't really want to talk to you," she tells Finn honestly, glaring at the back of Puck's head when the guy stands up and leaves the room. Jackass.

Finn rolls his eyes. "I don't know why you're being a bitch right now."

Her eyes narrow as she looks up at him. "Are you kidding me with this shit, Hudson?"

"Well it's not like I fucked around on you! You aren't my girlfriend!" he cries, throwing his hands up in the air.

Puck chooses this moment to slink through the living room, and she fucking _hates_ him right now for leaving her here to deal with this shit. "Fuck you, too, you fucking traitor!" she yells at his back as he goes out the door. She crosses her arms and glares up at Finn. "And you're right, I'm not your fucking girlfriend. You just used me to piss off your girlfriend, and that's bullshit. You know that's bullshit, Finn."

He locks eyes with her. "I know," he says seriously, and she's glad that he knows and all, but she's not done being mad at him yet. "I was just so mad-"

"That doesn't make it okay!" she interrupts, and maybe he doesn't know how bad he fucked up. Maybe he really is that dense. She stands up and takes a step towards him. He didn't just hurt Rachel with this shit, he hurt Santana too, and she fucking hates that he was able to do that, that she's invested in this enough or whatever that it was even possible to get hurt. "She's my best friend, and you used me to hurt her."

"That wasn't what I was trying to do." Still doesn't matter. "Fuck, Santana, why are you taking her side? You know what she did was fucked up."

God, he's infuriating, and it's so wrong of her to take a step forward and push him, her hands flat on his chest, but that's exactly what she does. "Maybe if you'd been able to fuck your girlfriend like a real man, none of us would be in this shit now."

She takes another step forward, intending to push him again, but he grabs her wrists in his hands and pulls her against his chest. "You're such a fucking bitch," he spits at her, and even though there's venom in his words, she can see the hurt in his eyes when he looks down at her.

"Fuck you."

The last thing she expects is for him to kiss her, but that's exactly what he does.

It's rough and hard, their teeth clashing together before he pushes his tongue into her mouth, and as much as she wants to be mad at him for not fighting with her, she can't. She bites down on his lip too hard to be considered playful, and he groans into her mouth, his grip on her wrists tightening until it legitimately hurts, but she doesn't hate that either.

He starts pushing her backwards as he kisses her, letting go of her wrists so he can tug her hoodie up over her head and growling into her mouth when he realizes that she's only wearing a bra underneath.

They make it to the wall next to his bedroom door, shedding clothes the whole way, and then he's putting his hands under her ass and lifting her up, forcing her to wrap her legs around his hips. He thrusts into her without warning, and her skull makes a sharp sound against the wall when she throws her head back. He slides one hand up into the back of her hair, cushioning the blows of her head against the wall every time he pushes hard into her.

It's the only thing he does that reminds her that this is Finn Hudson who's making her come so hard that she has to bite down on his shoulder to muffle the scream in her throat.

She's still wrapped around him when he takes a step back and leans against the opposite wall, sliding down slowly until he's sitting on the floor and his cock is still buried inside her. Her face is pressed against his neck as she tries to catch her breath, and she pulls away slowly when she realizes what just happened.

"Finn," she breathes, waiting for him to open his eyes and look at her. "You just fucked me."

* * *

><p>Puck's heard all about it. Finn told him, Rachel told him, Santana told him - he gets it. Rachel and Finn are both fucked up (not news) and Finn dragged Santana into it.<p>

He wants to stay as far away from it as fucking possible.

He doesn't want to talk to Finn because he doesn't want to talk about Rachel, and he doesn't want to talk to Rachel about Finn. He managed to piss Santana off, so he's really just spending as much time as he can being anywhere but home.

But Rachel's a fucking temptress and sends him a text about gingerbread cookies and _please_ and he goes over there because he's a complete sucker for Christmas cookies even if it does make him a bad Jew. (He also eats bacon, like, a pound at a time. Fuck it.)

And he fucking knows what he's walking into. He knows that she's been baking because she's upset or whatever, and he knows that she and Finn haven't really talked at all in the last week. It's such a bad idea. But...gingerbread.

He's working on his third cookie when she (finally) says, "You don't think it was all my fault, do you?" This was what she wanted him to come over here for in the first place.

He shakes his head at her as he chews. "Not playing this game, baby."

She lets out a little huff and crosses her legs in front of her as she leans back against her headboard. "Someone has to be on my side, Noah."

He doesn't say anything, just grabs another cookie off the plate she gave him and watches her. He's already told her that he's not taking sides in this. He's just feeling good about the fact that Finn hasn't decided that it's Puck's fault and thrown his shit out the windows or something.

"Fine," she says after a while. "Will you at least watch a movie with me?"

Of course he'll stay and watch a movie with her. Truth is, when he's avoiding her like he has been, he always ends up missing her, and he thinks she's probably been lonely this week too. None of them is really in the habit of spending much time alone, and they've all been doing a lot of it.

He makes the mistake of letting her choose the movie and ends up watching _Sabrina_ again. Yeah, again. She curls herself into his side, her hand resting on his stomach while he plays with the ends of her hair, and Puck's asleep way before Sabrina realizes that she's got the hots for the wrong guy.

He isn't sure exactly what wakes him up, but he can tell it's the middle of the night. The DVD menu is playing over and over on the TV, and Rachel is crying into his chest.

Yeah, that's probably what woke him up.

He puts his fingers under her chin and tilts her head up until he can see her face, her eyes all shiny and her cheeks wet with tears. "Rach."

"Tell me you aren't mad at me," she says quietly.

"I'm not mad at you," he replies simply, brushing a few tears from her cheek.

"Tell me you don't hate me," she whispers, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt.

Honestly, she looks so fucking sad right now that he thinks he'd say whatever she wanted, but it's the easiest thing in the world to say, "I don't hate you, Rachel." He tilts his head down to rest his forehead against hers. "What's this about?"

She shakes her head and he hears her swallow. "I just needed to hear it." She sniffles a little and brings her free hand up to wipe the rest of the tears from her cheeks now that she's stopped crying. "Will you stay? Please?"

"Yeah."

Puck kicks off his jeans and she curls up against him again when they get under the covers of her bed. Rachel's an affectionate girl, but this is something different. This is her being clingy and he knows there's more to this than just being tired or whatever. Part of him wants to tell her to talk to Finn, but one, he's already done that, and two, he doesn't know that it's a good idea to say it again when he's in bed with her and she's half-asleep. Besides, he figures he's mixed up in their relationship enough without offering his opinion on how they should handle their arguments and shit.

Instead, he brushes her hair back and presses his lips to her temple. "I could never hate you."

Her hand slides up his chest until it's resting somewhere near his heart. "Really?"

He catches her hand in his and brings it up so he can kiss the tips of her fingers. "Really."

* * *

><p>After two weeks of not really talking, Rachel finds Finn lying on his bed one afternoon.<p>

"I don't want to be fighting any more," she tells him quietly, leaning against the door frame.

She's done a lot of thinking lately, soul searching, really. Soon enough, things are going to change between them out of necessity, but not yet. She doesn't know what's going to happen between the two of them - or the four of them - in the future, but she knows that she isn't ready for those changes now.

Finn sits up and looks at her. "Me either."

She steps into the room, stopping at the foot of his bed. "I'm sorry. For everything."

"Me too." He takes her hand and tugs until she's sitting beside him. "I love you."

She nods and leans in to press her lips to his, enjoying the familiar way his hand sits against the side of his neck.

Rachel knows that this is just a band-aid. They didn't talk about anything, so they didn't actually solve anything. Their problems are still there, floating around in the air between them and just waiting to be brought up again. But she can pretend that they're okay.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **I can't thank you all enough for the amazing responses to this story, from alerts and favorites to the thoughtful reviews, especially from those of you who are taking the time to read pairings you wouldn't normally. Thank you!

* * *

><p>Finn gets chicken pox when the football team goes to some elementary school to do mentoring or whatever, and it turns into a big fucking deal. Somehow neither Puck nor Rachel has ever had chicken pox, and Rachel's full of ridiculous statistics about the virus in adults, so they both refuse to even be in the same apartment as Finn. Puck moves into Rachel's room (which is interesting since he's been spending less time there lately than he had been before Finn and Rachel's fight), and Santana ends up staying at the guys' apartment because someone has to take care of Finn's pathetic ass.<p>

Santana hates sick people.

She's not the most sympathetic person on the planet. She hates being expected to do things and she hates it when people whine, and taking care of a sick person is basically both of those things multiplied by a thousand. But she had chicken pox when she was six (like every other normal person) and she understands how much it sucks to feel awful all by yourself, so she'll deal with Finn.

(She also knows that he would do the same thing for her if she needed it, and that shit counts for something with her.)

And it's not so bad, even though Finn's really fucking sick. His doctor puts him on antivirals to keep it from getting worse and causing swelling in his brain or something ridiculous, and he's hopped up on some cold medicine or the other about eighty percent of the time. NyQuil turns him into a zombie, but this Sudafed or whatever he's taking during the day makes him hilarious, somehow mellow and jittery all at once. He is, however, driving her crazy with the itching.

He's lying on the couch watching TV while she sits on the floor in front of him with her laptop on the coffee table so she can work on a paper. She can feel him moving behind her, rubbing at his arms through the sleeve of his hoodie and fidgeting around.

"Stop," she orders, not looking away from her screen.

"It itches."

She's heard that exact phrase about half a million times in the last three days. She rolls her eyes even though he can't see her face. The kid refuses to take an oatmeal bath (which she sort of understands) and the calamine lotion she bought only seems to stop the itching for a little while before he's fidgeting again. She's at a pretty good stopping point in her paper, and she has an idea.

"Sit up," she orders, closing her computer and turning to face him on her knees.

He does what she asks without asking questions. This is a side effect of something, the drugs or the illness or just because he's glad that she's here. She likes it. "What are you doing?" he asks when she starts tugging at the waistband of his sweats.

She smiles up at him. "Distracting you."

She uses her hand until he's hard and looking at her sort of desperately, then he groans when she puts her mouth on him, burying his hands in her hair. She kind of loves the sounds that he makes when she goes down on him, the way his fingertips massage her scalp until just before he comes, when his grip tightens like he wants to hold her in place.

She sleeps in his bed because he asks her to, and besides the fact that he's too pathetic to refuse right now, she doesn't hate sleeping beside him. Generally, he stays on his side and she stays on hers, and that's how she likes it. Sometimes, he'll curl his body around hers in his sleep, his fingers tucked just under the edge of her panties at her hip, and she doesn't really mind that either.

He's already asleep one night when she goes in, doped out of his head on NyQuil with his mouth hanging open just a little bit as he breathes. He mumbles her name when she slips under the covers beside him, looks at her blearily for a moment before closing his eyes again. It's ridiculous and drug-induced and not at all attractive, but it's somehow so fucking cute that she has to smile, reaching over to fix the side of his hair where it's sticking straight up.

* * *

><p>Between school and chicken pox and all of the extra stuff Rachel's undertaken as part of her last semester at Berklee, it's been forever since she and Finn have had a chance to go out on a real date. They manage to go for coffee once in a while or hang out when they're both studying, doing separate things in the same space. They spend the night together at least once a week, but Finn gets that having sex and falling asleep beside each other isn't enough for a relationship, especially when you're both doing that with other people, too. If they don't make an effort, they don't have a relationship.<p>

So he asks his girl out on a date.

She looks beautiful in her green dress, and he takes her to one of those restaurants she read about in the newspaper that he really only chooses because it'll make her happy. She talks so much during the meal that he isn't sure how she actually eats anything; he's been trying to figure that one out for years, but he's given up on trying. He likes hearing her talk and tell stories, and it's been a while since they've been able to do this. It's really comfortable, and it feels good.

"So I walk into rehearsal, and it's absolute chaos," she's saying, gesturing a little with her wine glass. "Apparently Liz and Avery accidentally had sex this weekend. How do you accidentally have sex?"

"Wait, who's Avery?" he interrupts.

She furrows her brow a little over the rim of her glass. "I told you all about Avery. He's the one who hit on me on the first day of rehearsal."

Yeah, she definitely never told Finn about this guy. One, he'd remember hearing a story about some guy hitting on his girlfriend, and two, what the hell kind of name is Avery for a dude? "No, you didn't," he tells her simply.

She blinks and sort of stares off into space for a moment, thinking. "I thought I had, but I must be thinking of Noah." She waves a hand. "It doesn't really matter."

She goes on, and the rest of the story is actually pretty interesting, but it's hard to appreciate it. (Avery ran away from Liz when she started walking towards him with a pair of sewing scissors in her hand, shouting things about castration. It reminds him of Santana.) The thing is, Finn's sort of hung up on the fact that he has no idea who most of these people are, but this obviously isn't the first time she's talked about them.

It's just the first time she's talked about them to him.

It's weird, because he thought he knew everything about her at this point in their relationship, but this is proving him wrong. Even the little things are a big deal to Rachel, and they always have been. He knew dozens of trivial little bits of information about her before he even really iknew/i her. Somehow, now he doesn't even know who this Avery dude is, some guy she sees every day at rehearsal. It makes him more than a "little thing," and Finn's never even heard his name.

It sounds stupid, but it's kind of a big deal to him.

They don't spend the night together because she has an early rehearsal the next day. He just kisses her goodbye at her door and goes upstairs to fall asleep alone.

* * *

><p>Santana catches Puck leaving the apartment with his guitar on a Saturday night, so he kind of has to tell her where he's going, and when he does, she insists on coming along.<p>

He's started secretly performing at open mic nights in the city.

The thing is, he's been like, really inspired to write for a while, and the stuff that's coming out isn't half bad. Some of it might actually be good, and he likes playing and getting the feedback. He's just not quite ready for everyone to know. Mostly Rachel, because the girl can't just let things lie. She'd be bugging him about playing for his professors or something really crazy, like recording a demo or whatever.

He doesn't hate that Santana caught him. She sits beside him a table at this little hole in the wall, sipping gin and tonic and murmuring snide comments in his ear about the other performers until it's his turn. There's a little smile on her lips when he finishes his song, and it's still there when he asks her if she's ready to go a little later.

"How long have you been doing this?" she asks as they walk down the street.

He shrugs. "A few months."

They walk side-by-side in silence for two full blocks before she says, "You're good, you know that?" He grins at her and she looks up at him knowingly. "Has Rachel heard that song?"

He tries to keep his face neutral as he shakes his head. Fucking Santana.

She stops walking, puts her hand on the inside of his elbow so he'll stop and face her. "She's going to love it when she does," she tells him seriously, her eyes locked with his.

Honestly, he doesn't know how Santana does it. The song isn't _about_ Rachel or even for her, but yeah, she may have inspired it a little. He didn't realize it was that obvious, or he would have sung something else, something that Santana couldn't use against him. (Though, to be fair, Santana hasn't schemed in a long, long time, and he doesn't think she'd go after him if she decided to take it up again.)

"Can we just keep this between us?" he asks. He drapes his arm over her shoulder when she nods, drops a kiss to her temple as they start walking again.

* * *

><p>Santana wasn't quiet when she started applying at law schools, partially because the applications stressed her the fuck out and she needed to vent and partially because keeping things like this quiet just isn't her style. She knows that they all expect her to crow about her acceptances as soon as they come in, but she finds herself keeping them a secret. There's this tiny, niggling fear in the back of her mind that she won't get into law school at all, or that she'll only be accepted at one of the schools she doesn't really want to go to or something equally awful.<p>

Except now she has a stack of acceptances (Duke, Yale, Columbia, and Harvard, plus others she's already disregarded) and a huge decision to make, and none of the people who would usually offer their opinions even know about them.

She goes to Puck first, explains the situation and asks him what he thinks, but he's basically useless. All he knows about any of these places is where they are geographically, and his advice is to, "Go wherever you'll learn to be the most kick ass lawyer, Lo'."

It's not at all helpful, and she tells him as much.

She doesn't _decide_ to tell Rachel so much as her roommate comes bursting in when Santana has all four letters lain out on the bed in front of her so she can stare at them. (What? Maybe if she thinks hard enough, the one from the right school will levitate up off the blanket or something.) Rachel lets out a little squeal before she runs out of the room, coming back in a moment later with a thick stack of papers all binder clipped together. She's practically beaming when she thrusts it into Santana's hands.

"I did research," she tells Santana, though it's sort of unnecessary when she sees the front page:_ Law School Options and Information for Santana M. Lopez._

"I see."

Rachel watches for a moment as Santana leafs through pages, then drops down to sit on the edge of the bed. "I think you should go to Columbia, and then we'll be in New York together," she says in a rush. "If you look at all of the research, you'll see that Columbia is the perfect choice for you," she adds diplomatically, "but can you imagine taking New York together, too, Santana?"

Santana smirks over at her friend. "Like we made Boston our bitch?"

"Exactly!" Rachel laughs.

Santana actually does look at all the stuff Rachel's printed out and highlighted, but it doesn't really help her make up her mind. It's mostly information she had before she applied at these places, and she just needs something more than that. She knows the statistics, knows the history, knows about the cities. She already understands all of that, but this decision isn't just about those things.

She calls Finn to come over one night when Rachel is at a rehearsal. "I want your help," she tells him when he comes into her room.

He glances around the room, looking for the heavy object she needs lifted, she assumes. It's endearing even if she does roll her eyes at him.

She explains the situation to him, and when she finishes, he leans back against her headboard. "What do you think?"

"I don't know anything about law schools. You do. I think you need to talk it out," he tells her seriously. "So talk. Tell me about them. Tell me why you applied to them." He shrugs one shoulder. "I think it'll work."

So that's what she does. She talks about the things she knows he expects, the statistics and the history and the prestige, but then she tells him other things. Like how she's considering Duke because there's a part of her that always wanted to live in the South and how tempting it is to go to Columbia so she can stay close to Rachel.

"What about Harvard?" he asks after she tells him that at least a tiny bit of her attraction to Yale comes from watching _Gilmore Girls_ reruns on cable all through high school.

She lets out a breath and shrugs one shoulder, smiling at him. "It's Harvard. I love it here," she tells him, and she really means it. "Presidents have gone to Harvard Law. Thousands of important, successful people. Rich people," she adds, making him grin. "It's...fuck, Finn, it's Harvard."

He nods his head when she finishes talking, a little smile on his lips. "C'mere." He slips his hand into the back of her hair when she's close enough, then leans forward to press his forehead against hers. "I think you just told me what you want."

She shifts so that she's straddling his thighs and leans in to kiss him before he can say anything. Honestly, this guy. She doesn't understand how he does this shit, doesn't really offer his opinion at all and still manages to be the most helpful person she's talked to.

She mails her letter of intent the next afternoon.

* * *

><p>Rachel takes a weekend trip to New York in April to meet her fathers and find an apartment. New York is the dream. New York has always been the dream, the goal, and there's no way she isn't going to have it now.<p>

She finds the perfect place, a tiny one-bedroom with southern exposure in a building that actually has clean, well-lit hallways, and puts down a deposit.

As of July first, Rachel Barbra Berry will be a resident of New York City.

She practically floats for two weeks after she gets back to Boston.

* * *

><p>Puck and Rachel write a song together and end up performing it at a singer-songwriter concert thing for school. Finn sits with Santana in the audience and thinks it almost feels like high school all over again, watching Rachel singing with someone and being completely blown away by her.<p>

The difference is, he doesn't feel like going up on stage and breaking Puck's guitar over his head, even when the dude is smiling at Rachel and singing about lingering looks and stolen moments

Honestly, Finn thinks they sound - and look - good up there together.

He sticks with Santana at the little reception afterwards because Rachel and Puck keep getting pulled aside by people he assumes are important, and he doesn't want to be in the way.

"They make it look easy," Santana comments once. She's rolling the stem of her wine glass between her fingers, her eyes on Rachel standing across the room with Puck's hand on the small of her back as they talk to some short dude in an ugly blue suit. Finn just nods; Santana's right. "I think it is easy for them," she adds thoughtfully.

Finn doesn't disagree. It's always been easy for Puck and Rachel to fall together, and it's something that Finn's spent a lot of time thinking about. Since high school, really, because it just always seemed like Puck was there in their relationship.

Finn watches them as ugly suit guy walks away. Rachel turns and looks up at Puck, makes an excited little gesture with her hands, and throws her arms around his neck. They're both laughing as Puck hugs her, and Finn really isn't bothered at all.

He's lying in bed watching an _Entourage_ rerun when she comes in later, her face washed clean and her hair up in a messy ponytail. She glances at the TV and smiles. "Oh, Turtle."

He watches her sit facing him on the bed, her legs crossed indian-style. "You guys were awesome tonight."

"I'd forgotten how much I like songwriting," she says thoughtfully. "I haven't done it too much since glee club, but there's something so freeing about it."

Finn loves listening to Rachel talk about music. He always has. She's such an expressive person, and you can see the love all over her face when she talks. He realizes, lying there watching her talk about this song and how it's inspired her to start writing again and she's considering journaling and whatever else, that it's been a while since he's seen this look on her face.

He used to see that on her face every time she looked at him.

He takes her hand in his and traces his fingertips over her palm when she finally exhausts the topic. "You aren't in love with me any more."

Her eyes go wide and she takes a breath. "What?"

"You aren't in love with me any more," he repeats quietly. "Think about it. We aren't the same as we were before."

He doesn't know what it is exactly, but he knows it's true. She's always put music before their relationship, and he's always understood that, supported it even. It's what she's meant to do, and he loves it about her. But their relationship has been on the bottom of the list - for both of them - for a while now, shoved down by school and sports and other people. He thinks they've just grown up and grown apart.

And that's the thing. He isn't in love with her any more either.

"Finn," she says quietly, squeezing his hand. "I love you."

"I know. I love you." He reaches up to push a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "But we aren't in love any more."

He can see the realization on her face. "So what do we do? Do we try harder?"

He shakes his head slowly. "I think we let go."

"You mean break up." He nods. "Okay."

He tells her to stay when she tries to leave, and they lie together without talking until they fall asleep. The TV is on, but Finn knows they're both just pretending to watch. He's thinking about their other breakups, all those times that they hurt one another and walked away with broken hearts. This time, Rachel doesn't cry, and Finn doesn't feel like kicking anything.

That's how he knows it was the right thing to do.

* * *

><p>Puck isn't really surprised when Finn tells him what went down. Finn and Rachel have been pulling apart for months, if not for longer, and Puck thinks that they probably knew they weren't going to make it forever. It's probably better, in the long run, that they figured it out now instead of killing themselves trying to do long-distance.<p>

What does surprise him is how _okay_ with the whole thing Finn seems. Puck's been around for each of the epic _FinnandRachel_ breakups - fuck, he was the cause of one of them - and it's always been a fucking dramatic mess for one or the other of them.

He texts Rachel to meet him for coffee after her rehearsal, and he can't help smiling when she sends back, _I'm fine, Noah_.

He tells her to meet him anyway, and she's shaking her head when she walks up to him on the sidewalk. "So you talked to Finn."

"We live together," he points out. It's fucking stupid how good she looks right now considering that she's in jeans and one of Santana's Harvard tee shirts with no makeup and her hair in a ponytail. "You're both kind of weirding me out."

She steps to the door of the coffee shop and waits for him to pull the door open for her. "What do you mean?"

"Neither of you are crying," he says, following her in. "You don't look pissed off or depressed or heartbroken. Nobody wants to punch me in the face or claw Santana's eyes out. It's fucking weird."

She ends up laughing so hard that she's holding onto his arm like she might fall over. She can't even stop to give the barista her order, so he ends up doing it, glaring at her after he's paid. "You can stop now."

"I'm sorry," she manages, taking a deep breath. "I guess it is weird, but it's really not. It's been different for a while."

He nods. He knows they've been different, and he's wondered, just a little, how much of a role he played in that this time around. But honestly, if it was all his fault, they would have broken up two and a half years ago, after the first time he and Rachel fucked.

And yeah, the fact that he and Rachel have been doing this thing for two and a half years? That's been weirding him out, too, since he realized just how long it's been when he was talking to Finn this morning.

He offers Rachel a smirk as they're going back outside to distract himself. "Are you sure you don't need me to cheer you up or something?"

He's half-kidding, but then she looks up at him through her eyelashes and _fuck_. "I jammed my finger at rehearsal," she says, shrugging her shoulder a tiny bit as she shows him her hand. "I guess I'm a little sad about that."

"Yeah?" He takes her hand and brushes his lips over her knuckles as they walk. "I think I can make it better."

He's sort of relieved when they're in her bed and he's inside her. Part of him - the selfish part that loves sex with Rachel - was worried that the end of _FinnandRachel_ would somehow be the end of the thing he's been doing with her.

He was never, ever going to step on Finn's toes any more than his friend was willing to let him. He'd promised Finn once that he was never going to get in between his friend and Rachel again, and Puck meant that. But now there is no Finn and Rachel, and if he's being completely honest, it isn't just sex with Rachel.

He's not going to hold back any more.

* * *

><p>Santana knows she should move into back into Cambridge since Rachel's moving to New York, but she doesn't want to. She likes Boston and living in the city proper, and the commute to school isn't terrible.<p>

"I hate looking for apartments," she declares one night when she walks into the apartment. Finn and Rachel are sitting on the couch studying. It's funny, as different as things should have been since those two have broken up, they really aren't. The only difference, honestly, is that they aren't having sex any more. They hang out just as much as they did before, and they're each still having sex with one another's roommates.

Honestly, the four of them really are the most fucked up group of people Santana's ever seen. And she's part of it.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," Rachel says absently, her eyes still on the pages of sheet music in front of her. Bitch. It's her fault Santana has to find a new place anyhow.

Finn just kind of grimaces at her, barely glancing up from the notebook in his lap. It's annoying, but she gets it. Rachel's working on her final project for some big, important class, and Finn has finals too, even if he isn't graduating in two weeks like the rest of them. Plus, Puck's already told Finn that he's not staying in Boston, though he hasn't decided where exactly he wants to go, the flake.

All right, so she's a little stressed out and it's making her bitchy. Fuck off if you don't get that.

She's sitting on her bed with her textbook, surrounded by her notes separated into various stacks, when Finn taps on her door and steps into her room. "Don't touch anything," she warns, glaring up at him.

He holds up his hands. "I have an idea. If you have a minute to talk," he adds.

She blows out a breath and glances at the clock on her bedside table. "You can have two."

"Awesome." He's grinning when he sits in her desk chair and rolls over to the edge of the bed. "I think we should live together next year."

She doesn't know what her face looks like, and she's too busy thinking _what the fuck_ to imagine it or say anything.

Finn must know that, because he barrels on. "You can move upstairs, or I'll come down here, and we won't have to look for a place and deal with all that bullshit. Plus, it'll be cheaper than getting places alone. And we've basically lived together before."

"For two weeks!" she cries, finally finding her voice. "When you were sick and I took care of your stupid ass."

He shrugs like it doesn't matter, then glances over at her clock. "Two minutes is up." He leans over to kiss her forehead when he stands up. "Think about it."

And she does, as much as that annoys her. She has one final left, one final before she's officially done, and then two days till graduation, and she keeps thinking about what it would be like to live with Finn.

She goes straight to the guys' apartment after she finishes that last exam on Wednesday afternoon and finds Finn sitting on the couch with a beer in his hand. She knows it's because his last final was at the same time as hers, actually, but it takes her longer to get back from Cambridge. She's just a tiny bit annoyed that he's gotten a head start, so she flops down beside him and snags the bottle from his hand, taking a long, slow sip.

"I'm not moving up here," she tells him without preamble. She has to bite the inside of her lip to keep from smiling when he starts to grin. "And taking out the trash is your job."

What? She fucking hates dealing with the trash.

Finn takes the beer out of her hands and sets it on the coffee table in front of him before turning to kiss her, pressing her into the back of the couch a little. "Can I still do this?" he asks against her lips.

She lets out a moan when he skims his hand up her side to cup her breast. "Yes," she breathes, though it's just as much a response to the way he tweaks her nipple as it is to his question.

She doesn't really know what this thing between them is. They're good friends who have great sex. Apparently they're going to be roommates who have great sex. But there's something more there, and she doesn't hate the idea of finding out what it is.

* * *

><p>Noah writes a song about loving where you are and performs it as part of a showcase of graduating seniors. When one of his professors suggests that he record it, he asks Rachel if she'll do background vocals. "I know you're the star and shit," he tells her, grinning, "but we sound awesome together."<p>

She's happy to do it, actually, even without the ego stroking he offers her (though that is nice). The song is incredibly sweet on the surface, but it's more than that, deeper, exactly the kind of thing that music is supposed to be. It's just the sort of thing she wants to be a part of, and all the better that it's for Noah. She knows he's something special, even though he hasn't totally realized that yet.

She meets him at the studio after a dance class, sings her part with his voice in the headphones she's wearing, and she loves it. She can see him through the window of this little booth that she's in, watching her and smiling as she sings, and it's this perfect musical moment. She's been lucky enough to have a lot of those in her life, but it's been a while since she's shared one with someone else.

It feels amazing, and it just gets better when they sit there with Noah's professor and the sound mixer and listen to the rough cut. She grabs his hand because she has to, and the way he squeezes hers lets her know that he feels it, too.

It's late when they leave the studio, but she insists on stopping at the pub on the corner for a celebratory drink. They're still buzzing with excitement when they leave.

"I love music," Rachel says randomly when they're walking down the sidewalk. They aren't anywhere near their building, but the weather is lovely and they've each had a couple of drinks. Walking felt like a good idea.

Noah laughs at her. "Yeah, I know."

"No, I mean I _love_ music," she repeats with more emphasis, looping her arm through his. "It makes me feel...everything."

Noah stops walking and turns to look down at her, shaking his head. "I love you for that, you know?"

She puts her hands on his shoulders, stands on her toes, and presses her lips to his gently. "Come to New York with me," she whispers, sliding her hands down his arms until she's lacing their fingers together.

"What?"

She shrugs her shoulders. "You don't know where you're going, right? So come to New York. Be a songwriter. That place..." She trails off, smiling up at him. "It's everything. Come with me."

She doesn't know what this is, this thing that she's feeling with him. He's been such an important part of her life for so long, and she loves him. But right now, standing in the middle of a sidewalk in Boston, she think she might be falling in love with him.

She has no idea when that started to happen.

"Okay," he says after a while, nodding his head slowly. "New York."

She knows her smile is so big it almost looks silly right now. "New York."

* * *

><p>Harvard and Berklee have graduation ceremonies on the same day, but it's okay because graduation ceremonies are boring. Rachel's dads and Puck's mom and Santana's parents are all in the city, and because Mrs. Puckerman has been like a second mom to Finn over the years, he ends up going to the Berklee ceremony with her.<p>

Santana doesn't mind. She only got two tickets to hers, and they all meet up for dinner afterwards. She sits between her mom and Finn and gets tipsy because her dad keeps ordering champagne for the table. (Honestly, he's just so proud of her, and she loves that. She loves doing something that makes him look at her like that.)

Finn insists that the four of them have to go out after all the parents go back to their hotels for the night. They're all overdressed for the pub they go to, but it's one of their favorites, and honestly, Santana doesn't care about anything because she just _graduated_.

She's giving herself exactly one week to celebrate and relish the feeling before she starts an internship with the prosecutor's office and has to start taking shit seriously again. She intends to make the most of that week.

Finn and Rachel go to the bar for more drinks, leaving Puck and Santana alone in their booth. She's hit by a ridiculous wave of nostalgia coupled with a rush of affection for him (it's the vodka, she swears) that makes her move to the other side of the booth so she's sitting beside him.

"'Sup, Lo'?"

She just shakes her head at him. "This is almost it, you know?" It doesn't make sense, but he nods anyhow. "This has been the weirdest four years in fucking ever."

He snorts out a laugh. ""S'cause we're all fuckin'...fucked." He's trashed. She finds it strangely endearing.

"You're going to New York," she says, turning sideways in the booth to face him. "With Rachel."

"Yeah."

"You have to take care of her," she tells him seriously. "I mean it, Noah. I'll never forgive you if something happens to her."

He's still sort of grinning at her, but she knows he means it when he says, "I know. I will."

"And keep your fucking mouth shut," she adds, almost as an afterthought. "Don't say something stupid and get shot in the fucking head." And yeah, she means that shit. Puck runs his mouth more than just about anyone, and even though she knows that he can take care of himself, New York is different.

He laughs at her so hard that there are tears in his eyes. It kind of pisses her off, because she thinks he isn't taking her seriously, but then he catches her chin in his hand turns her head so he can press a gentle kiss to her lips. "Love you, too, Santana."

Fine. Yes, she fucking loves this asshole, and she isn't too proud to admit it, even if he does look way too smug when she says the words.

The guys complain about the lack of junk food in the girls' apartment when they get home, so Rachel kicks them out, telling them to "satisfy your junk food cravings in your own house!"

Then she goes into her bedroom and reappears with a bag of the blue corn tortilla chips they're both addicted to. Santana fucking loves this girl.

"You have to take care of him," she tells Rachel randomly. They're sitting on the couch watching _The Holiday_ even though it's May, eating chips and salsa and finishing the last of a bottle of tequila that was buried in the freezer. "I mean, he can take care of himself, but...just...take care of him, okay?"

It's weird, because it's basically the same thing she said to Puck earlier about Rachel, but that doesn't make it any less true. Santana's not a worrier - that's Rachel's job - but these are her two best friends, and she needs to know that they're going to be okay, that they're looking out for each other.

"I will." Rachel just has this perfect, knowing little smile on her face. "I'm going to miss you."

"You aren't leaving for a month," Santana points out, even though she started this conversation.

"I know." She looks at the TV for a moment, watches Cameron Diaz dance around for a bit. "You're my best friend."

Santana just smiles and leans her head against Rachel's shoulder. They fall asleep on the couch together in their dresses, curled up under a throw blanket, and Puck makes a dirty comment when the guys let themselves in the next morning and finds them like that.

Finn gives Rachel shit for holding out on him when she had tortilla chips and blames her for his hangover. ("Because I went to sleep with my stomach full of alcohol," he whines.) Rachel buys his breakfast when they go out to make up for it, even though she probably feels worse than he does thanks to Santana and Jose Cuervo.

* * *

><p>Finn and Santana help Rachel and Puck move to New York, and Finn thinks it's weird how <em>not<em> awkward the whole thing is.

He and Puck do the heavy lifting while Rachel and Santana organize boxes and things so that there's room for the furniture. Honestly, this place is tiny and Finn has no idea how it's all going to fit, but Rachel just waves her hand at him dismissively when he asks.

Eventually, they get everything into the apartment and all of the furniture is at least in the right room, and Rachel agrees that it's good enough. They've been lifting and carrying and organizing for hours, and they're all starving and exhausted. Puck orders pizza from the place on the corner, and Finn can tell that having the boxes everywhere is making Rachel crazy, mostly because the rest of them are sitting on the couch while they're waiting for the food, but she's in the kitchen unpacking small appliances and glassware. It's insane, but it's Rachel.

Santana lays her head on Finn's shoulder after she finishes eating. "Are you going to be able to drive home?" she asks quietly.

He nods, then slides his palm up and back down her bare thigh. "Soon?" She makes a little noise of agreement. "I'm gonna go say bye to Rachel."

Santana just nods when he stands up. He knows that the girls had their goodbye last night; they locked the guys out of their apartment and did crazy secret girl things that he knows he'll never know about or understand. Santana also already has plans to come back to the city for a shopping trip in August, and unless something comes up between now and then, Puck and Rachel are planning to be in Boston for Finn's first football game.

They aren't living in the same building any more - or even in the same city - but Finn thinks they might actually manage to stay friends after all this.

He finds Rachel in the bedroom smoothing out the fitted sheet she just put on the bed. "Hey." He grabs the flat sheet from where it's sitting on a box and moves to the opposite side of the bed where she's standing to help her spread it out. It's funny, he thinks, that Puck and Rachel haven't decided what they are - if they're roommates or fuck buddies or in a relationship - but they're going to be sharing a bed. It probably makes sense, given the way they've all been. He thinks he and Santana will probably be sleeping in the same bed more often than not even though they'll each have a bedroom, and they aren't _together_ either.

"You're getting ready to leave?" she asks, smiling a little sadly when he nods. "I'm going to miss you both."

He's tucking the sheet under the edge of the mattress, so he isn't looking at her when he says, "Whatever. You and Santana are gonna be talk all the time."

"It's not the same."

He smooths out a wrinkle in the sheet and moves around the end of the bed so he's standing in front of her. "Yeah, I know." He puts his hands on her upper arms, rubbing his thumbs up over her shoulders like he has a million times before. It's one of the things that's always made him realize how much bigger he is than her, how much of her he can touch at once because she's so small under his hands. "You gotta just...go be awesome, Rach."

She lets out a little laugh that almost a sob, sets her hands on his forearms, and stands on her toes to press her lips to his gently. Her lips are wet with tears he didn't realize she was crying, and he wonders, randomly, how many times he's tasted tears on her lips over the years. She wraps her arms around him and presses her face into his chest. "I love you."

He says the words against her hair, then tells her to stop crying when he pulls away. She's too pretty to cry, for one thing, and it's kind of stupid, he says. (It isn't at all, but he says it anyhow.)

Santana sits in the middle of the bench seat in his truck on the drive back to Boston, lays her hand on his thigh and tucks herself under his arm when they're out on the highway. It's taken him years to learn it, but she's always more cuddly when she's tired, and it isn't long before she falls asleep and her breathing evens out.

They go back to the girls' apartment - he figures he should get used to calling it his apartment soon - when they get back to Boston and fall into her bed after peeling off the clothes they're wearing. Santana curls her nearly-naked body into his, but he knows it isn't a sex thing.

"I miss them," she murmurs. He can feel her eyelashes brushing his chest. She takes a deep breath and he skims his hand up her back even though he's just barely awake. "I guess you'll do."

He chuckles a little because he knows that almost like 'I love you' for Santana.

* * *

><p>The only thing in their apartment that isn't a disaster is the bed. Puck thinks that probably has some kind of significance, but whatever. He likes the way Rachel looks curled up in it when he gets out of the shower, the light from the hallway on her face. She opens her eyes when she hears him fumbling around in the nearly-dark room. "I can't find the clothes," he tells her. He was looking for boxers, trying to be considerate and shit when she's this tired. He's actually not trying to sex her right now. (There's a first time for everything.)<p>

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, shaking her head. "Don't worry about it."

He presses his chest to her back when he lays down and puts his hand on her hip, smiling against her shoulder when she laces her fingers through his. "'S'good, Rach." He doesn't know what that means, but she doesn't seem to mind when she turns her head so her lips brush his.


End file.
